


Knights Most Heavenly

by The Rose Mistress (Semilune)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Awkward Crush, Aymeric is Horny on Main, Aymeric's internal monologue in chapter 5 took literally nine months to write, Betrayal, Bisexual Disasters, Biting, Bromance, Bromance to Romance, Claiming, Come Eating, Comedy, Cunnilingus, Desk Sex, Dirty Talk, Doggy Style, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epic Bromance, Established Relationship, Estinien and Aymeric are the old married couple, Everyone is Bisexual, F/M, Falling In Love, Feral Behavior, Flirting, Fluff, Foreshadowing, Friends With Benefits, Friendship/Love, Gremlins, Haurchefant is a ray of hilarious sunshine and I love him, Hot Springs & Onsen, Humor, I JUST LIVE FOR ANGSTY ANTICIPATION, Jealousy, Love Bites, Love Confessions, Love Letters, Love Triangles, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Pining, Old Married Couple, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, Open Relationships, Overstimulation, POV Alternating, Pining, Polyamory, Porn, Porn with Feelings, Porn with some plot, Possessive Behavior, Rejection, Reverse Harem, Romantic Angst, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Roughhousing, Roughness, Secret Relationship, Sexual Repression, Sexual Tension, TRUST ME EVENTUALLY A FOURSOME WILL HAPPEN, Teasing, Tsunderes, Unrequited Crush, everyone is a POV character at some point, scion family drama, textual edging, warring gremlins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:33:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22965460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semilune/pseuds/The%20Rose%20Mistress
Summary: ★ 3.0 SPOILERS!  An Unorthodox Ishgard Sandwich! NSFW! 18+ ONLY!  Includes porn, but as usual, I had to create some semblance of a plot in order to write this.  Multi-POV.Chapter Six: "Mirror My Malady."  Or: SEXUAL TENSION, THE MOVIE (part one)☾ ☄ ☽Hello and welcome.  I am proud to continue to provide the people of this community with sandwich and sandwich accessories.  In this open double-decker creation, I will attempt to incorporate Estinien, Aymeric, Haurchefant, and my own witchy Warrior of Light, Samantha.This was supposed to be a oneshot, but Estinien lost his damn mind and decided to go completely feral.  Please stay tuned as I descend deeper into comedy and sin.☽ ✧ ☾mirror my maladytransfer my tragedygot a curse I cannot liftshines when the sunset shiftswhen the moon is round and fullgotta bust that box, gotta gut that fishmy mind's aflamewe could jet in a stolen carbut I bet we wouldn't get too farbefore the transformation takesand blood lust tanks andcrave gets slakedmy mind has changed, my body's frame, but god I like itmy heart's aflame, my body's strained, but god I like it
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel & Estinien Wyrmblood, Aymeric de Borel/Estinien Wyrmblood, Eventual Foursome - Relationship, Haurchefant Greystone & Warrior of Light, Haurchefant Greystone/Warrior of Light, Warrior of Light/Estinien Wyrmblood, eventual Aymeric/WoL, eventual Aymeric/WoL/Estinien, eventual Haurchefant/everyone
Comments: 122
Kudos: 270





	1. Mongrel Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics and inspiration from "Wolf Like Me" by TV On the Radio. This is a semi-AU of my [established canon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12599668/chapters/28699292), but all of the players are meant to stay in character. This means I will be exploring Real Feelings amid the silliness! I'm thinking of it as "something that MAYBE could have happened if these particular choices came to pass." I do take liberties with the passage of time in MSQ (making it longer), and I enjoy multiple POV's, so this will shift from character to character!
> 
> Estinien Wyrmblood is my muse and he unapologetically rules my brain.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Lord Commander is making arrangements,” he explained very coldly, voice low and rough, midnight eyes nonetheless hot and enticingly dusky. “He surveys his men in the Highlands, and bids you attend him at Camp. As your faithful Ser Haurchefant finds himself detained at the garrison in question, I would escort you myself.” 
> 
> Though the words were decidedly formal, the implications in his eyes were somehow beastlier than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho there sinners this is NSFW! Just setting the tone /fingerguns

_Sometime between the Aery and the Vault ..._

* * *

☾ ☄ ☽

Frosty air rushed into her bedroom.

The hair set loose at her shoulders swirled to blow in her face. She spat it from her mouth; shoved back the tangles—but it was too late. Past the untied ribbons of her nightgown, the long, ragged ends of her wayward tresses whipped to drag swaths through the fresh-scrawled ink.

The Warrior of Light scowled and stared down at the smears on the page.

_So much for writing to Bryony._

There was a creaking of hinges. Another gust of frigid wind. 

Samantha groaned.

“Estinien,” she hissed, more a warning than a hello. No one _else_ ever crept through the balcony—let alone at _sunrise_.

She did not grace him with any attention, focused instead on crumpling up her ruined letter. Still, she felt the static as he intruded. Heavy, lazy footfalls. His steel-trimmed boots crunched against the floor in his prowl across the threshold. 

The door clicked shut. “Try to contain your excitement,” he said wryly.

Her face scrunched. She turned to glare at him. “You ruined my letter to my mother,” she grumbled.

The color of his eyes was so like midnight, lit from behind by the cold blue glitter of stars. For a heartbeat, he did nothing but survey her, long silver lashes half-lowered. His pale hair was dusted with a scatter of snowflakes, quickly melting—his swarthy cheeks flushed from the cold. 

His upper lip curled. 

Estinien’s scoff hit her ears with all the chill of gales prior. “Pardon the _ruin,_ then,” he growled. 

He knelt to shed his boots, latches and fastenings rattling. As he straightened back to his full height, he stripped off his gloves; flipped back his shimmering silver curtain of hair and unhooked his heavy overclothes.

She stared dully as he made himself comfortable. Aside from the cloaks and shells of tarnished armor, he was dressed in rough slacks and a casual jerkin—rare for the man who so clearly preferred to garb himself in _thorns._

Her voice was sarcastic. “Are you visiting me in the daylight, now?” she said, capping her inkwell, setting her pen aside. Her fingers were stained. She flexed them and sighed, angled to face the meddlesome dragoon. While she left her legs half-stretched, slouched sidewise in her chair, she pulled the loose collar of her nightgown shut and shivered. “I thought the sun made winter beasts _wither.”_

“No worse than your _withering glowers_ ,” he quipped. “You forget I was born on the moors. I endured the driest summers of Coerthas, and the heat of your glares well enough.” Estinien’s attention was piercing where it tracked across her shape, cutting biting, well-worn paths. “Still not dressed?”

She folded her arms at her chest and resisted the urge to cross her thighs. “I only _just woke up.”_

He arched one sharp silver brow and swayed toward her, one, two steps. 

Estinien had a habit of basking—witnessed, intensely, every shift in her _attention._ He cocked a hip to perch on the ledge of her desk, deliberate. _Provocative._ She knew then that he wanted to goad her—to coax her mind to wander—to note the way his muscular thighs bunched and flexed beneath his trousers. She knew he wanted her eyes to drag up the length of him, up to the slant of his hips; to tempt her to think of what slept there, always so eager to _beg for release._

The base of her spine prickled.

Instead of catering to his silent whims, Samantha pointedly glared at his face. He smirked from his vantage point above.

“What _are_ you doing here, Estinien?”

His smirk twitched into a menacing grin. “Did you receive any—summons?”

She felt her brows tense. “What _summons?”_

“To Camp Dragonhead,” he clarified, wetting his lips. He shifted his weight against the desk, readjusting his imposing haunches. Her eyes flicked down involuntarily at the action. Judgement lapsed, she drifted—traced the stretch and folding of his trousers—

 _Shite._ She clenched her jaw and jerked her gaze back to his in less than a second.

The loss of willpower was fleeting, but his smirk had already gone feral. 

“No,” she grumbled, through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the dark proposal in his eyes—the way they burned with sudden _invitation._

“Mmm,” he hummed. He rolled his hips to move an ilm closer, cocking one thigh aslant.

_Don’t look at it—_

“Curious.” The word escaped him in a sigh of smoke and gravel. He tossed his long pale hair behind his shoulders; caught her angry scowl through the side of his eye. “Very, very curious.”

Her heart was starting to stammer with exasperation, and—something else she wouldn’t admit. Not yet. “Quit dancing around it and _tell me,"_ she grumbled.

He slipped closer. With the way she was slumped in her chair, his sprawled leg brushed hers. The contact slithered through her. She closed her teeth tight against the goosebumps and forced herself not to react—ignored the way her pulse promptly hastened and burned.

Estinien, however, missed nothing. 

“The Lord Commander is making arrangements,” he explained very coldly, voice low and rough, midnight eyes nonetheless hot and enticingly dusky. “He surveys his men in the Highlands, and bids you attend him at Camp. As your faithful Ser Haurchefant finds himself detained at the garrison in question, I would escort you myself.” Though the words were decidedly formal, the implications in his eyes were somehow beastlier than ever.

Her face was crinkling. “What about Alphinaud?”

Estinien lowered his lashes. “The Warrior of Light comes alone,” he countered.

Her lips quirked into something between a mystified grin and a frown. “Alone?”

Despite the way he smoldered, he was stony. “Aye.”

She snorted. “What use can I have for _an escort,_ then?”

“Sorceress with unholy powers or no,” he grumbled, clearly affronted, “Your protection is a priority.”

She blinked. Searched his ever-so-slightly sulking face. “Ser Aymeric’s orders,” she deduced.

“Aye,” he barked. His lips pressed thin as he leaned closer, loose hair spilling down his chest in a silver cascade. “Shall we oblige him?” He nudged her leg with a kneecap. The corner of her mouth perked against her will, their eyes locked together. He pressed his knee to the inside of her thigh, mapping a path that bunched her nightgown, showing skin.

With a sigh of surrender, she relented to the fire he was stoking, sparked on the embers now forever trapped between them. 

Samantha let her stare go dark and hooded, heavy-lidded as she answered. “The Azure Dragoon, my personal bodyguard,” she said dryly, hoping she burned him through her lashes. “How gallant.”

“Nothing gallant about it,” he contested, eyes ablaze. “Merely an officer of Ishgard, following his commander's directives.” 

Her heart skipped a beat. As she beheld him, his eyes simmered, pitch beneath the hoarfrost of his lashes. He was close enough now that she could feel the heat of his body.

 _Say something appropriate_ , she told herself, half drowned in his stare.

The words came out wrong regardless. 

“How obedient of you,” she said.

Yearning stretched taut in his face. She could see it storming, vivid in his eyes. “Only if you _agree to be escorted,”_ he said, his chest rising with a quick, electric breath. He wet his lips, sinews tensing—

“Well then,” she said archly. “Do you plan to take me _now?”_

He snapped.

She held fast to her bearings as one broad, scarred hand snatched her nape—grinned in muted triumph as Estinien’s fingers tangled in her hair. She planted herself steadfastly in the chair, staring up at him in challenge. He bared his teeth. “Stand up,” he ordered, hoarse, struggling out of his jerkin.

She scowled. “You bend down.”

If he snapped before, now he frayed and tattered. As though the very marrow in his backbone cracked and melted, he instantly hinged at the waist, and—oh, his lips were hot and _smothering—_ his grip at the back of her skull strong and savage as a _dragon—_

She opened her mouth to taste his eager tongue. He groaned on instinct. 

Estinien broke away to pant for air, but kept his hand, insistent, on her neck. “Seven _buggering—”_

She lurched forward in her chair and captured his pout in her lips. This time, the moan that escaped him was desperate, breathless. He hunched close, bowed over, an antelope drinking from a stream, a mongrel feasting on freshly slain carrion.

Somehow, she was standing, anxious for leverage. Somehow she was lifted to sit upon the desk.

He stripped off his undershirt—scrunched up her nightgown and threw it aside. She was naked underneath. Her bare thighs bent to catch his narrow waist, raking them together. The hard arc in his trousers dragged a hungry curve between her legs.

She huffed at the feeling of cloth against flesh and Estinien snarled in her ear. 

“Break whatever curse you put upon me,” he panted. His teeth closed on the skin above her jugular. He sucked the flesh into his mouth. She gasped at the prickle of sensation—hissed and shoved his starving face away.

“Don’t put a bright bleeding bite mark on my neck right before we—”

“I never make you _bleed,”_ he contended. Then he sneered and found a fresh morsel of skin, licking and biting, defiant. Estinien nipped a path down her neck and she shivered with pleasure; felt painful marks rising up to the surface.

She sucked a breath through her teeth and gripped him with legs like a vise. “Stop—” Her words were punctuated by gasps for air as he kept pulling bruises with his lips. “Gnawing me like _—a bone—”_

Estinien tensed. Long white hair draped into her face as he hefted his weight, shoving her down. The desk slammed the wall. Papers crumpled. His hips bucked forward, grinding them base to base.

She stifled a yell as he clawed her thighs closer around him, rutting them ruthlessly together. Her heels bounced against the curve of his haunches, toes already curling. She swallowed an inglorious whimper. Even through the rough weave of his trousers, she felt him throb and flex. 

His breath was hot against her ear. “Then let me bury it.”

She arched her back to feel more of him, her fingers scrambling for his waistband. He lurched away. Samantha made a sound of frustration—moved her eyes to find his thumb paused at the catch.

His lips curled into a self-satisfied simper. “Hmm?”

She snagged his backside with her ankles and hauled herself half-off the surface. “Do it,” she hissed.

Estinien rarely smiled. 

But in this moment, he did—and it was dazzling.

Her breath came faster. She swallowed the dryness in her mouth and watched him, hypnotized.

He braced his thighs on the ledge and untied his laces; tugged down the front of his slacks. There was a trail of wiry white and silver, fine curls that dipped down low. And then out sprang the whole of his arousal, swaying to attention. Estinien’s eyes were on her face as he wrapped his ready girth in one fist. He pumped himself proudly.

Samantha tugged her lip between her teeth. Gods, she hated to beg him. But— 

She lifted from the desk. “Please—”

Estinien licked his lips. He kicked his pants down his legs—took a thirsty breath—nestled the tip of his cock where she ached. She tipped her hips up to take him and he grunted, gliding in. 

_Simple as sin._

* * *

His eyes glazed over as he hilted.

Estinien knew he was groaning out loud, but _hells_ —

She felt _so damned good—_

One ankle still caught in his trousers, her flimsy nightclothes flung to the side, he pinned her thighs back with the press of his shoulders. Her mouth opened wide as he rendered her helpless—just as he was _helpless to fight it._

He growled in submission. 

_Demented._

Thrall to the pull of his urges, he fucked her down into the mess of rumpled papers. Her cunt fluttered around him, pulling him deeper— _so insatiable_ —and who was he to deny her? Lust roared, brutal down his spine, and he pumped her full to the center. End to end he relished her skin, the way he fit somehow so _flawlessly within._ She was black velvet to tie him, ilm by swollen ilm; hot and soft, and _Fury strike him blind—_

_Why was it better and better every bloody godsdamned time?_

“Touch me,” she rasped, and he was powerless to resist.

Long tangles of hair, his frost, her darkness, clung to the sweat and white curls on his chest. Estinien worked his thumb between the seal of their bodies, picking skillful patterns on her silken, slickened flesh. He thrust as he obliged her, blood burning, struck by the way he could feel his own greedy stiffness sliding, steel-and-satin, _in and in._

_Hells and gods in heaven._

His pulse thrummed fast while he kept his pace steady. She struggled beneath his fingertips; squirmed as he called on fresh gestures learned in the Mists, perfected by night in this bedroom Fortemps—

_Moments ferocious and stolen—_

_So many sentiments—secrets too thin and exquisite to admit—_

“Estinien,” she moaned, her lovely, husky voice clipped.

_Witch so bewitching._

And again, he was spellbound—hexed by his name, full of craving, on _her lips._

He had to hear it again.

Sweat crept down his neck. His thumb plucked a more insistent rhythm. His hips pulsed to drum her. His lips were parted, panting as he pressed them to her ear. He sucked and bit the lobe gently, knowing it should—

 _“Estinien,”_ she gasped, _exactly as predicted._

He hardly had a chance to bask in animal conquest before she arched beneath him, impatient. 

_Halone._

She wanted _more._

 _Wicked enchantress—_

He braced his heels on the floor and drove home. Her breath on the slant of his ear was humid, heavy, _euphoric._

_Mine, mine, mine—_

“Keep going,” she demanded, trembling, breathless, _divine_.

Stardust shimmered at the edge of his vision. _Oh,_ she felt like rapture at his mercy, but the urge to obey her made it _sublime._

His body wracked with a shiver. 

Damn it all—he—was—

_Spilling._

Down dipped his hips. He tossed back his head and screwed his eyes shut; canted in, sinking and rumbling. “Samantha—” Teeth and tongue at her neck, he groaned, feeling his cock throb and twitch with the inexorable.

_Hells seven-blessed—_

Her mouth made sweet, ugly noises as she crested. It was a raw, recognizable sound. His pride flared high at the knowledge she was sated. Then her body went rigid against him, clenched with the twisting of bliss.

His back arched as she pulled his aching member in farther, and he swallowed a satisfied shout, riding her harder.

The fleeting glimmer of afterglow spread to veil his senses. Lost and wrung out in the wake of his release, he slumped to cage her to the desk—tried to catch his breath. He buried his nose in her neck; allowed himself to breathe deep, to partake in one pulsebeat of weakness. Beneath him, her legs were violently shaking. 

For a moment, the two of them shivered and panted in tandem.

Then, a dim smile in her throat. Her voice was rough and hoarse. “Was that your definition of bodyguarding?” 

He harrumphed and scrubbed his scowling lips against her skin. Damp. Salty. 

Why did she smell so _delicious?_

He bit her hard on the shoulder, and she hissed. _“Estinien—”_

His cock twitched. She jerked at the sensation. His lips curled into a grin and he flexed his pelvic muscles to twitch inside her again, ignoring the jolt of his own overstimulation. She howled. “You absolute bollock,” she grumbled, squirming underneath him. “Get _off.”_

He bared his teeth; raked them up her neck. “Did already.”

She made a sound of deep indignation. He could feel the crackle of aether as she summoned ice _somewhere,_ but he still had her pinned down, immobile. “I hope you know I _hate you_ ,” she lied.

Estinien snorted a laugh and licked an angry bite mark. Gently, he arced back. She sucked in a breath as his softened cockhead slipped out; he tensed and grunted. Silver hair fell into his eyes as he shamelessly took her measure.

She was wetting chapped lips—pushing back her dark tangles of hair. Her skin was flushed, a chain of bruises on her neck. Both legs shook as she tried to rearrange them. She dipped a hand between her wobbly thighs to catch the aftermath, but not before he caught a glimpse. His come, thick and viscous, glistened to drip between her fingers.

He felt a rush of blood surge downward at the sight.

_Mine._

* * *

“Wait.”

She blinked up at him, bewildered. “What?”

The way he looked at her was hot enough to leave blisters. 

He leaned close again, eyes flicking down. “Let me use my mouth.”

Her face scrunched in disbelief as he pressed his thumbs into her thighs, meeting her dazed stare. Estinien made a show of flipping back his tangled hair, lowering his pale lashes. The gaze he aimed at her still held an undertow of contentment, leftover from before—his eyes whispering words unspoken, truths she doubted would ever pass his lips.

His smirk, however, was _vicious._

“Relax,” he commanded.

She scowled at him. “Relax,” she repeated, supple muscle and softness of her stomach flexing as she watched him dip between her still-shivering legs. “So says the man with the grin of an— _ah!”_

Nothing could have prepared her for the feeling of that wild, wolfish mouth on the flesh he’d just ravaged—the hotness of his tongue, laving away his own mess. He groaned as he licked her and— _oh,_ he _kissed her,_ a hum in the back of his throat. She fisted a hand in his beautiful tresses and his eyes fluttered with bliss. 

Heat prickled into her cheeks and she labored for breath. 

He—he was—

He was _genuinely enjoying this._

Her legs tensed and slackened. He made a sound of approval and gripped her thighs in both palms; spread her wider. Fresh swells of warmth pooled and ached where he touched her, soaring with every stroke of his tongue. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and threw back her head. “ _Twelve,_ Estinien—”

She could feel that feral grin curl against her. “Hmm?”

There was a wet sound as he sucked on her clit. Her gasp was nearly a shriek. Any hope of reprimand dissolved from her throat, and she bucked her hips into his waiting mouth. His tongue dipped inside her, tracing where she throbbed—from the teasing now, the drumming prior. “ _Estinien,”_ she panted, voice raw and broken. She tried to push him back but only pulled him closer; moved to close her legs but only spread them farther. 

He sucked and licked and kissed, and before she knew it, she was shattering into his mouth.

Estinien paused to admire the way she flushed and writhed—feasted through the waves of her bliss like a starving, untamed animal. As she came down, his eyes were blown darker, shadows of midnight, rapt with desire. “Bed,” he grunted, locking their stares. He swept his tongue across lips slick with wetness.

She was speechless as he helped her to the floor—braced herself against him—cast a glance down to his straining erection.

“Get on the bed,” he said, voice gruff.

Her heart skipped a beat. For a moment, she could only stare. Then she reached between his legs; smirked as she stroked and determinedly tugged him. He seemed almost _harder than before._ She knew exactly what she was doing when she said it. 

“Make me.”

His eyes went all but black.

She choked out something half-scream, half-laugh as he manhandled her onto her stomach. Impatient, Estinien bent her over the desk. His body bowed to cover her, broad chest on her spine, and he sucked in a breath as the smooth tip of his cockhead swung to bob up against her.

Her back arched.

The demand was blazing at her ear. “Kiss me."

She turned her face at once to find his open lips—slid their tongues together—groaned at the taste of them both in his mouth. He pushed his length inside her. She sank back on him completely, and he made a sound of visceral pleasure. 

Every muscle in his body flexed. A thrill shuddered fast down her backbone. He twisted a hand in her hair and pulled, very gently, following her panting mouth with his lips. “Tell me how it feels,” he breathed, ragged. He pumped his hips. She rolled her head back into his hand, lost in the sensation.

“Perfect,” she sighed.

Estinien closed his eyes. He pulsed inside her, lips soundlessly parted. His thrusts were hard, his body heavy. He kissed her, deep and all-consuming as he rode her, mouth hung open at her lips. “Say it again,” he begged. Both hands stroked down her body in worship.

“You feel— _perfect.”_ She choked on the words as he kept moving, pleasure and agony painted on his face. Her hipbones were starting to bruise from the pounding, but somehow, it was only _fantastic_.

His brows knit. He was breathing fast and shallow, raking fingers to her neck. 

Estinien took her throat in one scarred hand as he fucked her, relentless. She gasped; his lips parted in reaction. He curved tight and close, pressed their foreheads together. No words. Only the thump of his hips, the slap of his skin, the throb of him so far inside her—the musk of his sweat, the taste of his breath, the drape of his hair, and—

Somehow, she was coming again.

There was a dull rush in her ears as she surged back over that threshold, unable to stop the sob on her lips.

“Oh—gods, _Estinien—”_

Unadulterated delight crossed his face at the sound—a softness in the back of his eyes. He reeled and groaned as she wept with elation.

His breath hitched. He crushed his mouth into her neck; moved the slightest bit slower, and—

Estinien winced and thundered a sharp line of curses; worked her firmly against him. His hips lurched—jerked again as he grunted a moan—and he panted, hot and open-mouthed. “Holy _hells.”_

She was breathing stiff enough to lift them both from the desk. She swallowed the dryness in her throat; swept her tongue to catch an embarrassing hint of—was that _drool?_ Samantha snorted and almost collapsed with silent amusement. “I hope you plan to carry me to Camp Dragonhead,” she rasped.

His shocked, earnest laugh. Estinien dragged the tip of his nose down to trace her cheek and chuckled, shuddering above her. “If that be your wish,” he said, soft and solemn. “I would grant it.”

She was smiling wide enough to sting her cheeks. “Good,” she croaked. “Now get off me. Again.”

He rubbed his grinning teeth against her temple—licked the shell of her ear. As he peeled himself slowly from her back, she was vaguely afraid she might dissolve into a puddle. Luckily, that fear did not come to pass.

He staggered away. Samantha weakly rolled to one side and shoved a hand between her boneless legs, catching a thick, slippery trickle. “Twelve in heaven, Estinien,” she censured, staring at him. How in the hells was there still _so much?_

He was also unsteady on his feet, much to her satisfaction—wobbly and _strikingly handsome._ Amazing, how mellow his face became post-coitus. If a scowl could be called somehow tender, he aimed one at her. “Pardon?”

“Nothing,” she said, something giddy in her voice. She tested her balance and immediately tipped back against the desk. 

_Damn it._

He was prowling over. She laughed, breathless, as he braced a sturdy forearm at her back. Estinien helped her to a stand. Samantha draped her free elbow at his nape and made the mistake of meeting his gloating, heavy-lidded stare.

_Cocksure bastard._

“Don’t you dare say anything,” she warned him, wiping her palm on her leg, squeezing shut her thighs. “Just—help me to the bathroom.”

His lips quirked smugly. A silver tangle fell across his eyes. “As in— _escort you?”_

She shoved her hand across his mouth, and he licked her entire palm. She flinched away. “Ugh, _gods—”_

“More like,” he cleared his throat and offered an impersonation. “Oh, _gods, Estinien—”_

She flicked him in the forehead—yelped as he hefted her up and threw her over his shoulder.

Too weak to struggle loose, she could only huff in defeat as he smacked her backside proudly. The Warrior of Light grumbled. “I hope you know how much I hate you, Estinien Wyrmblood,” she lied.

The Azure Dragoon swaggered them both toward the washroom. 

“It’s mutual,” he growled, kicking open the door, biting her hard on the ass.

☽ ❅ ☾

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dream me, oh dreamer, down to the floor  
> open my hands and let them weave onto yours  
> feel me, completer, down to my core  
> open my heart and let it bleed onto yours  
> feeding on fever, down all fours  
> show you what all the howlin's for


	2. Feeding on Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know it's strange, another way to get to know you  
> You'll never know unless we go, so let me show you  
> I know it's strange, another way to get to know you  
> We've got 'til noon, here comes the moon, so let it show you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have to accept that I'm incapable of writing anything debauched without some semblance of setup. 
> 
> This chapter starts out with Aymeric POV, a flashback to two nights ago, just after the MSQ "He Who Would Not Be Denied." For the purposes of this story, I imagine instead of storming up to the Archbishop right away (and getting arrested), Aymeric paused to get some affairs in order first (including calling the Dragonhead meeting). After this, we have Estinien's POV the next morning, and THEN we return to the present.
> 
> References to a bunch of OC's that I've introduced in my longfic, [ Astral Fire, Umbral Heart. ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12599668/chapters/28699292)

☾ ✦ _... two nights prior, in the Borel Manor ..._ ✦ ☽

* * *

☾ ✧ ☽

Aymeric de Borel closed his eyes and took a breath—peered back down at the paper on his desk.

The beginning of a letter.

\- - - - - - - - - -

_E,  
Forgive me—_

_\- - - - - - - - - -_

The Lord Commander of Ishgard exhaled. 

He set his pen in its stand and buried his face in both hands.

Red bloomed behind his eyelids, the ghosts of sounds and sensations. 

_Cloak and armor scraping the ground as he departed the Manor Fortemps; moving at a sprint through the Pillars. The spires of the Cathedral rising swiftly to meet him—the bile rising faster. His heart plunging down into the acid of his stomach—_

Melisandre, breathing a warning in his soul.

_Be wary, my son._

He blinked his eyes back open; scrubbed the heels of his palms down his face.

And so—rather than allow his _tender_ _heart_ to compel him—

He turned around. 

Instead of confronting his father in madness, he staggered, homeward bound.

Down in the cellars of Manor Borel, he opened a lavish Bordeaux—saved in case of celebration, for reasons now unknown. The bottle was drained near to empty beside him. He washed down the bitterness in his throat with another deep swig. 

_Arrange your affairs. Then you can face this._

He shuffled the letters already composed—one to _Maman,_ to be tucked in the drawer by her bedside. One to Jean-Michel, to be filed in his desk. One to _Tatie Camille,_ to be burned in the hearth of the parlor. One to Simone and to Rémy, and one to—

He swallowed his misgivings, and picked up his pen.

\- - - - - - - - - -

_E,  
Forgive me—  
Forgive me my Sentiment.  
In this instant, it controls me.  
And thus do I declare—  
By every sacred Measure—  
As Before and as Ever, my dear, Dearest Friend—_

_\- - - - - - - - - -_

Aymeric dipped his quill into the inkwell.

\- - - - - - - - - -

_I love you._

_\- - - - - - - - - -_

* * *

☾ ❅ ☽

Estinien shoved a steaming parcel into Aymeric’s hands the next morning.

“Bangers and onions and half a baguette,” he barked. “Eat.”

It was early. The Congregation of Our Knights Most Heavenly was not yet fully roused, but the Lord Commander and the Azure Dragoon both seemed to share a tradition of chronic insomnia.

Aymeric huffed out a breath. He peeled back the crinkled parchment on his greasy, pungent gift; stared accusingly up at his companion. 

“Estinien—”

“No,” the gift-giver grunted. “No grumbling, hemming, or hawing. _Eat.”_

Estinien ignored the heat beneath those long, rook-black lashes—pushed his fringe from his face and turned on his heel, straightening his plainclothes. 

“Wait,” blurted his commander.

The would-be escapee paused—tensed to whirl back around, silver eyebrow upraised through the tangle of his hair. 

An envelope was thrust into his hand. 

“Read it in private,” Borel muttered, sinking back into his chair.

The hound stared down at the face of the bastard—beautiful, sleep-deprived, _defeated._ After a long tick of silence, Estinien glanced at the door to the office. His sinews itched to _flee,_ but—

Without another word, he tore open the envelope.

Aymeric sighed a long-suffering sigh as wax was peeled, the letter brusquely unfolded. “Do remember that I warned you,” he said. He slouched to relent to his unasked-for vittles. Catlike, he took a bite of browned sausage and watched through the side of his eyes as Estinien’s face turned very ruddy.

The outburst was about as deafening as expected. 

“What in the _slagging—_ ” Estinien held the offending piece of paper at arm’s length as though it might strike out and lash him. “What is the _meaning of this?”_

“I thought the connotation rather clear,” Aymeric drawled. He arranged a big mouthful of meat and onions on a scrap of dry bread.

_I love you._

Estinien glowered and rocked with deep breaths. “ _Pronouncement,_ you mean?” The callused fingers clasping the letter trembled, wrinkling the paper.

“’Tis hardly a _pronouncement,”_ Aymeric argued. “Merely—a _reminder.”_

He watched blandly as Estinien wavered between crumpling the thing and ripping it to pieces. A vein in the stretch of his neck started throbbing. 

Finally, _slowly,_ he folded the confessional back along its creases. Knight dragoon tucked the letter in his pocket—jerked his chin at knight commander’s half-eaten breakfast. “Finish that,” he spat, making nimbly for exodus.

“One more thing,” called Aymeric.

Estinien jolted to a stop, teeth bared into an aching grimace. Pale hair whirled into his face as he jerked to glare over his shoulder, face twisted. 

_“_ _What?”_

Aymeric finished chewing another infuriatingly calm bite. “Before I take action with Thordan, I must needs manage the remainder of my men—namely those in the Highlands.” He hesitated. “Would it be remiss of me to ask a favor?”

Between the wicked witch and his beautiful buggering Borel, Estinien was losing the last of his senses.

_Half-off the trolley, batty as a madman—_

“Ask it,” he demanded.

For a pulsebeat, there was silence. 

Then. “The Warrior of Light,” Aymeric said. “I—” He faltered. “I wish to speak with her alone.”

A strange combination of unexpected emotions surged down the madman’s backbone. 

Disgrace? Dishonor? Denial?

_Devolving into something deranged?_

_Tell him—_

Estinien took a breath. His stomach twisted. Molten claws raked at his chest. “Alone?”

Aymeric nodded. “But you are welcome to attend,” he added. “In fact—would you ensure her presence at Camp Dragonhead, midday tomorrow? Call it an escort mission, if you will.”

Did he suspect? Did he _know?_

His thoughts started churning with a tempest of godsforsaken questions.

Samantha? _Alone?_

_Tell him now, confession for confession—_

His jaw clenched. For Aymeric alone, he would offer a concession. 

“Aye,” Estinien grunted, loping for the exit.

* * *

☾ ✦ _... present day ..._ ✦ ☽

* * *

✧ ☄ ☽

Mid-morning was blindingly bright, bone-chillingly cold—

A perfectly Ishgardian day.

Limned in slants of light that peeked beyond the curtains, Samantha and Estinien were fresh from the washroom, smelling less of sex and more of rosehip chamomile soap—her favorite combination. As he toweled his hair, Estinien swept a long, glimmering, moon-colored handful beneath the hook of his nose.

He took a deep sniff and rumbled. “Hmm.”

She flipped her dark wet tresses aside to regard him. “What?”

While he had her attention, Estinien made sure to luxuriously mop himself dry—down the plane of his chest, fluffing the lawn of tiny white curls there—down the taut slant of his stomach, the dusting of hair that trailed past his navel. Down dipped the towel, between his muscular thighs. He spread his legs in a flaunting display as he dried, maintaining eye contact. “Nothing in particular,” he lied.

Samantha snorted, padding past him to her dresser—avoided his pinching fingers to shove on stockings and smallclothes. She rummaged through a drawer, digging out a chemise. “Remember—”

“Back out through the balcony,” he barked, dusky voice a shade from surly. He stuffed himself into his trousers—swished his hips to rearrange—crept close to her again as she bent to struggle into her gown. 

He snuck a tweak of one arsecheek before she smacked away his hand. 

She scowled at him hotly. “Where should I find you?”

Estinien crouched at the foot of the bed. Heel by heel, he slipped on darned, woolly socks; hooked and latched his boots. “Dropped my armor for repairs in the Crozier,” he provided, shrugging his cloak over his shoulders, tugging on a glove. He swept back his hair with his bare hand and watched her through his lashes. “Come with me to fetch it?”

She fastened her bodice and snorted. “Do I have a choice, Ser escort?”

Estinien grinned and swaggered to begin his designated departure. “Not in the slightest.”

* * *

The smith was stumped about the scarlet tarnish. 

“Perfectly sturdy drachen equipment—aside from the color,” she said, adjusting her oil-stained apron. “Ah, and the horn on the helm.” 

Estinien was curt, but respectful. “It makes no matter so long as it’s mended,” he assured her, accepting the haversack, offering reimbursement.

As they continued their detour through the Crozier, Samantha shivered. “Aetherical contamination might explain it, you know.” She leveled a hand above her brow, against the glaring sunshine. “The power of dragons is an ancient, arcane mystery.” Somewhere half-within her, wherever he dwelt, she almost felt Midgardsormr’s growl of allowance.

A frosty breeze bit her nose. Even in the sun, beneath mantle and fleeces, gloves and heavy winter gown, she was _freezing._

She burrowed deeper in her layers. 

Beside her, Estinien leered through the side of his eye. “Cold?” he asked, slinging his satchel up higher.

Her teeth chattered. “No.” 

They crunched a few more steps before he thrust out a hand, clotheslining her by the collar. She tried to struggle away, but he yanked up her scarf—wrapped it to cover her ears. He was grumbling something under his breath about body heat escaping. 

“Shite swiving numpty ‘lone Hero of Eorzea’ chilling to death on _one sunny morning amble—”_

She slapped his hand away, ugly-laughing. “Since when have you approached _Leveilleur levels of fussing?”_

His back stiffened. He huffed out a cloud of white mist. 

“Since spending so much time amongst you pinheaded henpeckers, I reckon,” he growled, glaring down at her. His dark blue eyes glittered. He poorly parroted her voice as they continued their stroll. “Oh _Estinien.”_ He flattened a hand across his chest dramatically, tipping back. “I’m so happy to see you don’t _sleep in your armor._ Are you not _freezing?_ You should take better _care of yourself—”_

Samantha punched him in the stomach. 

He doubled over, coughing. She trudged indignantly past him, shoving hands in her pockets—ignored the twinge between her legs. The bruises leftover from their romping were making themselves known.

“I’m hungry,” she muttered as a distraction.

“Plenty of peddlers,” he wheezed. He quickly matched pace to elbow her ribs. “Pick your provision.”

At that precise moment, a rich, brown, mouthwatering fragrance crossed her nose. She tipped back her chin and slowed her meander. Ice prickled her nostrils as she took a deep whiff. “You smell that?”

True to form, Estinien was already sniffing. He squinted through the sunlight down the far row of stands. “Mutton stew.” She felt his gloved hand wedge at the small of her back, firm but gentle through her layers. “This way.”

They half-jogged toward a vendor—apparently the culprit—and Estinien, apparently, was acquainted with the seller. The stand was manned by an older fellow with bottle green eyes. “Esty my boy,” he cried, already reaching for his cookpot. His gaze flicked to Samantha. “Two trenchers for ye today?” 

Estinien grunted and nodded; used his mouth to remove one glove. His silver bangs fell into his face and he shook them aside like a dog. “How fares your niece?” he asked through the mitt in his teeth. 

The merchant’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Busy with the little ones.” He prepped a pair of hollowed-out bread rolls, piling them with thick, meaty gumbo. Estinien reached his bared hand to accept them, balancing both at once somehow.

The cook topped off the steaming servings with an overflowing ladle. Then he stashed the dipper and wiped his hands on a rag. “You look hale, my lad.” He glanced at Samantha again. “Hale and hearty.”

Estinien coughed. Was it the cold, or was he blushing? “Let me square up with you, old man,” he said gruffly. He handed Samantha her bread bowl and shoved his still-gloved hand in his pocket. 

The Warrior of Light remembered herself and fumbled for her Scion-issue wallet. “I’ll take care of it,” she crowed, trying to edge him out of the way—but Estinien jostled her back with one swing of his hip. Gil passed from his pocket to the counter before she could rebuke him, along with—

A folded square of—stationery?

Estinien’s eyes widened by a hair. He tried to scoop the renegade paper back between his scarred knuckles, but perhaps unfortunately for Estinien, the missive slipped from his fingers. 

Samantha knelt to pick it up.

The memo was heavy stock, folded twice; soft and faintly fuzzed along the edges—as though he’d kept it in his pocket for some time, or handled and creased it a countless amount. She resisted the urge to unfold it as she offered it back to its keeper, but caught a glimpse of neat blue calligraphy in the pleats.

\- - - - - - - - - -

_E,  
Forgive me—_

_\- - - - - - - - - -_

Estinien snatched the paper—jammed it back in his pocket—abruptly retrieved a—

_Spoon?_

Samantha’s nose wrinkled as she laughed, completely speechless. 

“Come along, then,” Estinien grunted under his breath, jamming the utensil into her trencher. He jerked his chin back at the vendor. “Keep warm there, Vic.”

“You do the same,” the man called back. As Estinien started off, Vic the merchant winked at Samantha and mouthed some words she couldn’t decipher. Maybe … _make sure he behaves? Keep an eye on him?_

“Hurry up,” her grumpy spoon-giver was grouching.

She focused back on him. 

Estinien’s body swayed like a dancer as he sauntered ahead, picking a path toward a sweeping step way of the Pillars. She shadowed him, distracted by the way his hair glittered down his broad shoulders in the sunlight—pearlescent as stardust or moonbeams. It really was stunning. 

_He_ really was stunning.

Dull tension in her chest. A low, hollow throbbing inside her. The hint of a lingering, limitless _ache._

_Sweet anguish._

She snorted and rolled her eyes at herself. 

“Why do you carry a _spoon_ in your pocket?”

Her shepherd shrugged and spun on his heel, nimble as a gymnast. Estinien looked down his nose at her as he kept on walking, now backwards. “Spare spoons almost always come in handy,” he said simply.

She scrunched her nose and cackled. “You really are the strangest creature.”

He grinned crookedly; spun back around to perch on an obliging ledge of stonework. “Here.” He squatted down. She settled beside him—wiggled the spoon in her stew with one forefinger. 

Samantha quirked a brow at her peculiar, provocative, _unorthodox_ companion. “Are we sharing this?”

He arched a pale eyebrow back at her. “The spoon?” 

She rolled her eyes again, but half-smiled. “What else?”

He knocked her thigh with one of his and grinned—leaned into her ear. “I could summon up other suggestions.”

She pinched him hard on the neck. He hissed with laughter, reeling back. 

“Haven’t you had enough for one day?” she asked. She ignored the fact that her own blood was greedy and burning, shoveling up a heaping spoonful of mutton, lifting it to her lips. Estinien lunged to pilfer the bite for himself. 

She caught a glimpse of the curl of his tongue as he pulled back, swallowing. 

He bared gleaming teeth. “Never.”

“I hope you know you’re appalling,” she muttered, digging out another mouthful—eating it before it could be sniped. Onion and garlic, potato and spice. She passed him the spoon and he licked it; tapped it thoughtfully on his lips.

“I seem to remember you chanting a different refrain in the bedroom,” he said, scooping stew into his mouth.

She scowled at him. “Swine.”

He tore off a hunk of bread and popped it in his mouth. _“Beasth,”_ he corrected, spilling crumbs.

She snatched the spoon and furiously devoured several bites. “Never again,” she said between swallows, ignoring the way the ache between her legs roared in ravenous protest. “This morning was _it.”_

Estinien made a thoughtful sound and chewed another bread chunk. “Doubtful.” He cast a furtive glance at their surroundings and leaned in close to her temple. Strands of hair tickled her skin—rosehip and chamomile and _pepper and zest_ —and what could only be the tip of his tongue flicked her earlobe. His breath was very hot. “Not when it feels so—” He paused and dropped his gravelly purr another octave. _“Perfect.”_

She hated her body for instantly reacting; hated her spine for its prickles of levin.

Hated the way his taunting voice made her _wet._

“We are in _public,”_ she hissed. But she couldn’t deny it. Despite the goading—despite the bragging and boasting and biting and _bruising_ — _or possibly even because of it—_ she always wanted more of him.

Worst of all, she knew Estinien _knew it._

_More, more, more—_

_Him, him, him—_

He stole back the spoon. 

“After the meeting, then,” he said glibly, chewing. 

She whipped her head to face him, open-mouthed.

Estinien raised both sharp brows. “What?”

Her chest puffed out with a breath. “I will do as I please,” she spat.

He smirked, bending close to her ear again. 

“Allow _me.”_

It was a reflex, to squeeze her thighs together—a reflex to swallow her moan. In lieu of words, she made an embarrassing splutter; tore a hunk of bread to shove between her duplicitous lips.

He stuck the spoon back in her trencher. “Leave the balcony unbolted tonight,” he suggested, stretching, spreading his legs. He gazed at her through long, ice-colored lashes, completely self-possessed.

☾ ☄ ✧

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This silly little thing is giving me life and I love it. Thank you so much for reading!


	3. Bite that Binds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several unsteady breaths passed between them. The air was heavy with the struggles of an epoch, the passing of the years; two hearts too familiar with blockade and besiegement, obstruction, collision, and careful redivision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back on my bullshit and it feels so good. WoL POV followed by Aymeric POV.

* * *

✧ ☄ ☽

Samantha slouched against the wall adjoining the Intercessory and scowled.

Ser Aymeric was supposedly inside the conference room already. But like hells was she walking in there to face him _unaccompanied._

Not after all the dragooning and _taunting._

Since her escort and eternal tormenter insisted on _changing back into his armor_ —she rolled her eyes at the thought—she waited for him to return. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before a towering figure garbed in scarlet spines strutted back into the alley. 

The Warrior of Light stood a bit taller.

She jerked her chin to motion to the sentinel guarding the doorway, a stone’s throw away. “Well?”

Even when all was withheld but a splinter of his chin, Estinien was compelling. He cut a shape severe and arresting, with movements that dripped of raw animal grace. It was less her friend, more a brute of legend prowling toward her, decked in horns and crimson lamella. But while Estinien’s eyes might be hidden, hers were not.

To hide what was surely _unguarded attraction_ , she hardened her expression.

Inflating his ego was the last thing she needed.

“Wait there a moment,” he said, stalking closer. His gravelly voice was schooled to a stony, distant demeanor—the kind he used when they were politicking or _disagreeing_ , so different from the rowdier rapport of their one-on-ones prior. He was close enough now that she could see his mouth was tense. 

Samantha shifted her weight against the wall. Frowned. “Is something the matter?”

He jerked his chin. “Nay. Merely—” He paused and seemed to provisionally reconsider. His fine lips stretched very thin. “I have a matter I wish to discuss with the Lord Commander alone. In private.”

_Curious._

Still, she shrugged, otherwise indifferent to the decision. “By all means.” Filthy, frustrating creature though he may be, Estinien _was_ a military leader—and the martial operations of Coerthas were something unbearable to parse. “I’ll go bother Haurchefant in the meanwhile."

That made Estinien snort. 

He propped himself beside her temporarily, armor grating the stonework. “Check his office.”

“Thank you for the creative suggestion,” she said dully, knocking the beak of his helmet with a knuckle. She began to heft herself away from the rampart, but her skirts snagged on something.

Estinien’s foot. 

He’d hooked her ankle with one drachen toe tip, pointing it under her hem. Estinien wet his lips— _don’t look too long, remember the ego—_ then pressed them tight together. His eyes were invisible past the shell of his helm, but she could almost _feel_ them rake her over, hot and scrutinizing. 

She lifted both eyebrows. 

Samantha’s long hair curtained dark across one shoulder as she tilted her head, snagging a peek beneath his visor. “Yes?”

The muscles in his jaw clenched. He balked and flinched from whatever he was thinking. “Go on then,” he muttered. “Find your Silver Fuller.” Again, in that careful, cold, crumbling cadence. 

Before she could say another word, he was loping gracefully away.

Her breath clouded in plumes as she watched him meet the guard—watched him stiffen and enter the archway, disappearing beyond. 

She huffed again and pursed her lips, scowling to herself. 

_Maddening._

* * *

It was a very short journey to Haurchefant.

At the entrance of the hall, she tapped snow from her boots; pushed through the heavy doors. Though the chamber was spacious, it always seemed nonetheless toasty and warm. Knights attending nodded and she nodded back—searched the room for few familiar faces. Her heavy heels clapped a steady rhythm on the flagstones, distance shrinking to the archway of his office. 

“Haurchefant? Are you in?”

Almost immediately there was a racket from within—a scrambling of chair legs and papers. 

She caught the fragrance of hot chocolate as the door banged wide open.

“Samantha!” 

Shale fringe mussed and untidy, Haurchefant burst into view, positively alight. “My lady,” he said, half-breathless. He was dressed in warm fleecy jerkin and trousers, armor shucked for the moment. “By the heavens—are you not meant to be in assembly with the Lord Commander?”

Her lips perked into a smile at his antics, and she gently shook her head. “Ser Estinien wished for a moment alone—something to do with the Knights Dragoon, perhaps—and so here I am.” She gestured uneasily to herself, craning her neck into the chamber. “Am I interrupting anything?”

He hopped foot to foot, vacating the doorway, offering a better view inside. 

“Not in the slightest,” he said brightly. He extended an arm toward his desk. “Would you join me? If you like—I just so happen to have a fresh pot of chocolate.”

“I hope that means you plan to make me an offering,” she said, stepping tentatively into the alcove. As usual, his reception was in jolly disarray—files and documents haphazardly jumbled, several empty cups in the corner.

He made a sound of affront and bustled to the hearth; retrieved a kettle from the hotplate. “You insult me to imply I might _not.”_ Pot in one hand, he rushed to drag an empty chair to his desk—shoved aside the mess to make a spot on the counter. The way he moved was weightless, fleet-footed, the same playful mode of his voice. “Alas,” he lamented, still smiling, “My administrative skills want improvement, but—pray, have a seat.”

She perched in the chair as he rummaged for mugs; felt her face scrunch with an ugly belly laugh. “Our comrades would be appalled by this chaos.”

“Bold of you to assume they were ever unaware,” he rejoindered, pouring her a cup.

Finally seated and sipping his cocoa, Haurchefant sighed, very delighted. “I confess, I hoped you might have a moment to spare before your meeting.” He almost tripped upon his words in his excitement, enthusiasm palpable, _contagious._ “It seems too long since I last saw you.”

“It was _two days,”_ she cackled, unwrapping her scarf.

“Two days too long, then!” He laughed and pushed his messy fringe from his face, eyes blue and bright as a noontime horizon sparkling to find her. “Foiled by the siren song of duty yet again,” he bemoaned. Then he melted back into another broad grin. “Else I would have escorted you to Camp today myself.” 

She chewed her lip and coughed out a chuckle. It was overwarm in the office, now—and she still attired in wrappings. 

Samantha rearranged her hair uncomfortably. “So I was told,” she said, loosening her cowl.

Observant almost to a fault, Haurchefant set his mug down on the counter and leapt to his feet, pacing behind her. “By Ser Estinien I presume?” He flexed his hands in her periphery. “Let me take your things.”

She barked, relinquishing her chocolate, hinging to a stand. 

_“Your_ things, you mean,” she corrected—cloak in question a gift from none other than _Haurchefant himself_. 

He clucked. “Necessities, willingly given.”

She snorted and shrugged, allowing him to unbutton and unwrap. “And yes, of course it was _Estinien,”_ she said wanly. She puffed out a breath. “The one and the _only.”_

“The singular, surly sensation,” Haurchefant agreed, lifting away her outermost layer.

Scarf and cowl gone now, air freely swept to kiss her neck—and that was when she felt the tingle of something almost forgotten.

_His bite marks._

Blood crept to redden her face, prickling past the morning’s collar of bruises, keepsake reminders of—

A _sensation_ , indeed.

The ghost of Estinien’s mouth caused her to miss the next morsel of whatever Haurchefant was saying.

“— _means well,_ always has; hides the good heart of a herdsman under his scowls, you know, but—salt of the earth or no, I daresay the fellow could use a lecture or several on _warm tones of voice.”_ He leaned to her ear, and the smell of leather and aspen soothed her senses. “But pray refrain from telling Ser Aymeric I—”

His voice stalled and cut off abruptly.

She blinked at the sudden, damning silence; tried to regain her composure. “Telling Ser Aymeric what—?”

Haurchefant strode around to face her.

For a moment, he studied her throat— _so much for any composure—_ and then his expression turned dire. Wild blue eyes flicked to double check the open doorway. He marched over, closed it, marched back and pressed a hand against his neckline.

He lowered his voice to a hoarse, cracking whisper. “Are those _love bites?”_

_Oh gods—_

She gnawed on her lip with revitalized anxiety. “Is it that bad?”

His eyebrows rose so high she was genuinely concerned they might fly off. _“Obscenely.”_

She pulled the frilled-and-ribboned ruff of her gown up like a turtle retreating into its shell.

_Holy hells._

Haurchefant cleared his throat. “Are—” He tuned his voice lower. _“Who gave you love bites?”_

She choked on air and scrunched her brow at him. “I can hardly _tell you—”_

“Of course you can,” he pressed. 

His eyes were almost feral, wheels turning malm after malm, glittering with humor and mischief and _unmistakable envy._ Then, a bit of an aside to himself. “Who could it _possibly be?”_

She strung her palm across her sordid gorget of bruises and ignored him, frowning hard enough to crinkle her forehead. 

_If_ _it was that obvious…_

“Twelve,” she grumbled. “I can’t possibly meet with Ser Aymeric if—”

Haurchefant gasped, eyes blown wider. “Oh _n_ _o_ _.”_ He laughed loudly. Weakly. 

_Shite-wiping arsecheeks._ Had she given it away somehow?

“Oh, Halone _help me,”_ he croaked, and she balled a fist in his woolen lapel. 

“Greystone—”

He wrung her cloak between his hands and coughed the name out, quiet. _“Wyrmblood?”_

She tried to scowl and pout and grimace all at once, and he gasp-sobbed into uncontrollable titters. 

“Gods in gleaming heaven.” He snort-chuckled. “What on earth or firmament—possessed you to—” He wheezed and doubled over.

Torn between the urge to flick him on the nose and laugh at herself, she settled instead for a beetle-browed glower.

“I had no idea,” he was saying, breathless. “All _holy on high—what a notion—”_

“It’s not _so unusual,_ you know,” she grumbled. “The notion of _distraction—”_

“Not in the slightest,” he agreed, wiping a tear. He finally moved to hang up her cloak. “But that _particular selection—”_ He half-sighed. “I was under the impression—” He paused and took a beat to move beside her. When she found him with her stare, he squared his shoulders. “I was available for the _position,_ you know,” he said boldly, kept quiet. “Still available,” he continued, an open invitation—the set of his lips uncharacteristically tense. “If you enjoy the notion of— _distractions.”_

They locked eyes for a moment, brown to blue. 

It was a conversation carefully skirted; a line never near to traversed. And who could blame her? After what happened with Thancred, and— 

She looked away, flushed so hot she was sure she resembled a definition of ruddy theretofore undiscovered. “That would be—” She reached for her cocoa as she struggled for the word. “Too—”

Haurchefant huffed and pouted.

She tried again, sinking to her chair. “Peculiar?” 

He pouted even harder, tilting his head. “Is Estinien not the _definition_ of peculiar?”

She deflated. “I have no defense for it,” she muttered, sipping chocolate. “It simply—inevitably— _happened.”_

“Make no mistake,” he stammered, perching on his desk. “By no means am I blind to his _allurement,_ but—” He lifted both eyebrows and blinked very quickly. “Exactly how beastly is the—you know.” Barely a whisper. “ _The sex?”_

Oh no. 

_No._

“Is he not— _animalistic?”_ he pressed, waving to her neck.

“We are not having this conversation, Haurchefant,” she said, breathy. Her face was suddenly burning, sweat beaded on her nape. Not talking about the beastly creature from her bedroom; not when the animal in question might prowl across the threshold any moment. 

Not when a rakish grin was spreading on the Silver Fuller’s lips. 

“Oh ho.” Something impish rose behind his eyes, glittering clear and cerulean. “By Halone,” he said darkly. “It _is_ the sex.”

_Troll._

“I said no such thing,” she barked. She stiff-armed her mug to her lips and gulped deeply.

Haurchefant smirked and scooched to the edge of the counter—bent to lean close to her ear. Both steel-grey eyebrows arched high and _waggled._ “Methinks the lady _doth protest too much.”_

She grunted in indignation and shoved his leering face away. “You absolute gremlin.”

He chuckled, rebalanced on the desk. “It must be filthy,” he was saying. “The _swiving_ , I mean. Which, I concede, can weave a considerable advantage. But is he not _literally filthy?_ As in, _unwashed?_ _Unhygienic?”_

A shriek of outrage escaped her. “He _bathes!”_ She stood in a huff to slam her chocolate on the counter. “This discussion is over,” she said sharply. “Especially if all you plan to do is _humiliate me—”_

“No!” He leapt from the desk, eyes large and contrite. “No humiliation, please!” He took her shoulders in both hands, lips pressed thin. For a moment, she frowned while he searched her in silence, unspoken emotions kindling in his gaze. His chest rose with a breath. “Truly, you must understand that I—” He exhaled and tried again. “It simply makes me quite—jealous,” he admitted, also suddenly deflated.

She wrinkled her lip. “Jealous?”

“Are you surprised?” He looked down at her in shock and mild dejection. “Surely you noticed,” he stumbled, the words spilling out. “All along, my frank fondness—my liking, for _you.”_ He stuttered but never backed down. “I was under the impression that you _realized,_ Samantha— _my lady_ —yet shirked the affection of myself or other comrades for—” He puffed out his chest. “For some sundry reasons—”

She spread a hand dead center on his sternum. “Some sundry reasons,” she repeated, feigning calm. Fire sparked in cinders down her backbone, the way that always happened under pressure. She took a breath through her nose to transpose. “Reasons which still, in fact, apply,” she continued. “And in the case of Estinien—” A very brief falter. “To the best of my knowledge, _affection—_ as we might define it—was never a part of it.”

Although he maintained his lighthearted demeanor, Haurchefant was, quite evidently, wounded. His sunny blue eyes sparkled fiercely as he watched her, seeking any crack in her façade. 

“Touché, madame,” he narrowly conceded. “But,” she shut her mouth as he held up a finger, “Before you crow in triumph, allow me to forewarn you.” He cleared his throat. “Though he might seem to be molded from briars—and bone and steel reprisal besides—I know Estinien Wyrmblood well as any brother, and—”

The words seemed to snag on his lips, sputtering out like a low-burning candle.

Her throat was filled with ashen anticipation. “And?”

He coughed, too aggressively, and paused. “And—you passed up my undying devotion, for—for _that!”_

Jarring, the change in his rhythm and cadence. 

“Haurchefant,” she muttered, feeling freshly anxious. He was abysmal at lying. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing indeed,” he dissembled, scratching the back of his neck. “Nothing to hide, aside—from my own disenchantment.” And then the words were coming smoothly again. “Disappointment, _disillusionment,_ at your cruel, callous hands—” He collapsed against her shoulders. “Why did you hide this from _me,_ your _dearest friend—_ ”

Samantha scowled at the crown of his head. “Good gods,” she grumbled.

_Here we go again._

* * *

☾ ✧ ☽

Aymeric sighed and paged through his portfolio of papers.

He presumed his orders were clear, but—

_The letter was plainly a misstep._

He took a breath.

The afternoon was ending, and still no sign of Estinien, nor the remarkable woman he promised to chaperone.

 _‘Tis unlike him to flout a directive._

Another breath.

_But faced with fresh disclosures of affection—_

Of course, as was often the wont of such things, as soon as Aymeric allowed himself the faintest mote of dread, the door to the chamber scraped open. “Lord Commander,” announced a rough, familiar voice.

Estinien rounded the corner. 

He was dressed in his customary suit of armor—now stained crimson by the slaying of the wyrmking. Aymeric felt his heart splutter at the thought; loosed a sigh of belated reprieve. “Halone be praised,” he muttered, largely to himself. His eyes flicked to the door to search for his second attendee. “But where—”

“She awaits us,” Estinien gruffly provided. “I desired a moment alone.”

The Lord Commander stared at his officer, and faltered.

Against his will, against years of careful training to _control himself,_ Aymeric’s heart started pounding. He watched his surly companion’s slow amble to the table, absently scrubbing thumb and forefinger across his bottom lip. “A moment alone,” Aymeric repeated, hating the way his voice sounded frail.

_You fool, Borel—you deserve this for shirking the boundaries and agreements—_

“There is something I must tell you,” Estinien muttered.

Another breath. Another heartbeat. Another rush of anxiety down his spine. “Is it with regards to Ishgard, or the letter—”

“Bugger the letter,” Estinien barked. He was stiffened, body gone ramrod straight beneath his ruby tines. His lips were pressed thin—the only indication of his otherwise hidden demeanor. He took a steadying breath. “Nay,” he said, a margin calmer. “What I would tell you is—” He stopped. Huffed. Swallowed very hard. “Something slightly other.”

The words were spoken with muted resolution.

From his seated vantage point, Aymeric blinked at him slowly. Levin seemed to crackle in the air, settling low in his stomach. “Speak your mind,” he invited, suddenly, distressingly _pensive._

Estinien scoffed. “My mind.” The plates and spines of his armor clattered as he loomed closer, glancing tensely at the fire. “My _mind.”_ He paced a few steps away. Then he paced back. 

The Azure-turned-Crimson Dragoon prowled to stand at the opposite end of the table and unlatched his helm, easing it off—setting it down on the corner. Aymeric blinked several more times, staring at the headgear. 

For Estinien to explicitly _show his face—_

The Lord Commander’s spine went stiff enough to match his brother in arms. “You have my undivided attention,” he said quietly, nerves sparking wholly alight. 

Like a predator caught in a snare, Estinien stared across at him, quiet as a shadow. He braced the heels of both red-armored palms against the far ledge. His long, silvery hair draped to tickle the surface, coming loose from the plait he kept coiled under his helmet.

Estinien took a breath deep and thick and bitter enough to rattle his drachen armor. Then he coughed it back out. “It regards the Warrior of Light,” he said through gritted teeth. His air began coming more quickly. He jerked his chin to stare at the fire again.

Glints of flame reflected in the deep, grasping darkness of Estinien’s eyes, and Aymeric’s brow tensed in intuition. He ignored it—wet his lips instead, willed his wild heartbeat to settle. “What of her?” he asked. “Has her conduct remained satisfactory?” He paused, static surging in his ears. “Or has she perhaps—rankled you in some manner?”

The laugh that escaped Estinien was shockingly loud; enough to take Aymeric admittedly aback.

Wyrmblood launched off the edge of the table and stalked across the room, footfalls crisp and light against the floor. “Has she rankled me,” he recited, under his breath. He strode back to the table and slammed down his hands; stared directly at Aymeric with a grimace on his lips and agony in his piercing eyes.

Aymeric rose to his feet. His throat was dry. “Estinien.” He moved to close the distance and gripped his oldest, dearest, most difficult companion by the hard, spiny curve of his pauldron. “Tell me what transpired—”

“I took her to bed,” Estinien croaked, silver brows tensing. His ragged plait fell over his shoulder as he jerked his head to lock their stares.

There was a dense beat of silence.

Eyes the pale azure of diamonds bore into a pair of starless midnight, completely dumbfounded.

“You—” Aymeric cleared his throat. 

_Dizzy._ He was dizzy, bright spots drifting in his vision. 

The bastard braced himself against the orphan’s shoulder.

It was inconceivable. 

Still, he tried again. “You took her to bed.”

Estinien drew a thin breath. “Aye.”

Aymeric struggled to conjure another response, and came up empty. His face wrinkled gently.

“Hellfire and damnation,” Estinien moaned, slouching out of his grasp. “I should have kept it to myself—”

“Beg pardon,” Aymeric grunted, snatching Estinien’s pauldron again. He needed water badly, but— “As your commanding officer, my sentiments—”

“And what of your sentiments as Aymeric de Borel?” Estinien’s stare was cutting.

Sentiment. Closeness. Something far beyond _camaraderie—_

Aymeric could feel his own heart in his neck. “Well do you know the extent of my sentiment,” he exhaled.

Several unsteady breaths passed between them. The air was heavy with the struggles of an epoch, the passing of the years; two hearts too familiar with blockade and besiegement, obstruction, collision, and careful redivision. 

Estinien lowered his eyes. “I cannot resist her.”

Aymeric’s heart scrabbled at the cage of his chest. He tried to stop himself from asking, but the power of curiosity—of _envy—_ was persuasive. 

“Do you love her?”

“No,” came the answer, too quickly.

Aymeric stared at him dully. “Wishful thinking?” he muttered, and Estinien’s face crinkled.

Perhaps, in that moment, they both remembered words from long ago.

_You only speak of love so tartly because you feel it so keenly, Estinien._

Keep your holy hallowed heartsblood to yourself.

“No such declaration has been uttered,” Estinien insisted, and Aymeric knew it to be true. It was risky to coax him to say it. 

_In my life_ —so said the lost shepherd— _love seems to beget only pain._

“And yet,” Aymeric sighed, sinking away. “I daresay some wayward spark of it has found you.”

_If not the youngest flicker of a flame._

Estinien choked on a breath. “Barbarian,” he grunted.

But the bastard barbarian knew he was right, and the beast could not deny it.

Both men dreamt of an all-consuming passion—something blazing to weather their long winter nights.

What, now, could soften the hoarfrost of time? Both of them starving, and desperate, and _savage as animals,_ one defying all devotion with his barricades of rime. Yet Aymeric could see it in those hard, haunted eyes—

Estinien hungered for love that would snap back and bite him, no matter how grimly he struggled to fight. He yearned _,_ hot and melting—sizzled afterthoughts of smoke into the light. 

Just as Aymeric prayed to the heavens, Estinien bayed to the moon for something to blind him, fierce as he hunted in kind.

Aymeric sighed, heavy and resigned. 

“Shall we invite her inside?”

☾ ☄ ✧

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need you all to know that the document for this "silly AU foursome oneshot" (I named the file "Club Sandwich") is now at twenty thousand (currently 20,309) words. Twenty. Thousand. Words. Please look forward to it.
> 
> /slithers back into the abyss


	4. It's True, True, True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fox and the hound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brand is gremlins. Also wranglers of gremlins, typically gremlins themselves.

* * *

☾ ☄ ☽

_“Greystone!”_

He sidestepped as she leapt forward—ducked an outraged flick from her forefinger. 

“No humiliation, remember?” she groused. Samantha hounded him across the office.

Pinned gently by the mantel, Haurchefant shook back his shaggy hair and laughed. His bright blue eyes twinkled. “No humiliation whatsoever,” he insisted. But now, past another serving of cocoa and unrelated gossip— _did Emmanellain mention his latest plans for Alphinaud?_ —the Silver Fuller sparked again with something impish. 

He threatened to begin another ribbing. “Merely a footnote,” he claimed. The quilting of his doublet crinkled as he rebalanced, grinning down at her. “A postscript. An _addendum regarding debaucherous diversions.”_

Samantha grunted and shoved her emptied mug at his chest. 

“Choose your last words carefully,” she hissed, aiming for his appendix.

Her quarry dodged the cuffing, undaunted. 

“I will speak plain,” he declared, slipping past her—snagging her dirtied cup. “Pleasing though your pick of paramour may, periodically, be,” he continued, whirling on his heel. “And practiced, _perhaps,_ in primal, _primordial pleasures—”_

Haurchefant dipped into a sweeping bow, face tilted suddenly down to her. She was taken off-guard by his nearness—the tickle of his hair—the clear, spring-blue shining of his eyes. His stare roved her face, determined, _attentive_. 

In the glimmer of space between Fuller and Light, she thought she saw a pledge, a _challenge,_ start to rise. 

Haurchefant took a quick breath. 

“I beg you to consider,” he purred, brushing their noses just barely together— _winter woodland and cocoa and leather._ Then he backed off. Vaguely frazzled, she watched as he retreated—tossed back his hair—stretched to full height and angled one swaggering, confident hip. The echo came. “Consider.” 

And then he gestured to himself with both hands, a drained mug of chocolate held in each.

“The _main attraction.”_

Samantha stared at him and coughed.

The look in the eyes that beheld her—happy, hungry, _hopeful—_ was somehow both _wholesome and obscene._

She coughed again. “Abominable,” she barked, shocked and appalled. “Positively _vile.”_ She chased him, desperate to land _just one punch to the gut_ , but he dodged away, effortless, cackling. 

_“Consider it!”_

That was when the door swung open. 

Shorn of his helmet, trailing cool air, Estinien hunched to skulk inside. His hair had come loose, draped like cobwebs upon the red spines of his pauldrons. He shook pale tangles of fringe from his face to squint from Greystone to Floravale. 

“What, exactly, are we _considering?”_ he asked, grimacing hard enough to summon stormclouds.

Haurchefant chortled. He set the mugs down on his desk and promenaded past Samantha, offering a display— _or rather a spectacle_ —of every lithe, alluring asset, poised and self-assured _._ “Ah, my dear Wyrmblood,” he cried, reaching for the knight dragoon with both outstretched hands. 

Estinien cringed away from him, stone-faced. “If you so much as _touch me,_ Greystone—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Haurchefant sighed an exaggerated sigh. “Gobshite this, _heavensdamned that_ —seven swiving hells and so on and so forth.” He crossed his arms and pouted, in lieu of finding purchase on the armor. Thwarted. “Have you ever considered the good it might do you—to learn to be less of a _contrarian?”_

An answering snort. “I parry your damnable urge to lay on hands, and you begin a lecture?” Estinien, also pouting, sidled closer to Samantha. Eyes narrowed, he analyzed Haurchefant like he was something very slippery—and, she reckoned, _he certainly was._ “No sermons on my character, man,” growled the animal. “Not when business needs tending.”

“Alas, the rub,” Greystone lamented, shoulders slouching in defeat. _“Business.”_ Face misleadingly grim, he turned to Samantha. His eyes gleamed with clandestine mischief. “The Lord Commander’s hound comes to purloin you, my fairest, most _distractible lady.”_

The Warrior of Light choked upon a noise of frustration—successfully swallowed it down—noticed the way the Silver Fuller’s roguish shine brightened. She shoved a hand in his direction. 

“Haurchefant,” she demanded. “Give me my things.”

He smiled, eyes blue and twinkling. “As you wish.”

The pile of cloak and scarf and fleeces was passed. From where he towered overhead, Estinien cast her a glance. She did not need to look at him to feel the lazy way his gaze traced her; the way he watched as she draped and wrapped and fastened—

The way his focus lingered on her _neck._

He took a step closer.

_Electric._

Eyes trained on Samantha, Haurchefant grinned, coy and very couerlish. “Let us hope that Ser Aymeric sees fit to guard your virtue in my absence,” he said coolly, stare drifting pointedly to Estinien.

The Azure Dragoon bristled. He seemed to stifle something in place of speaking it aloud, but she glimpsed the glint in his eyes—cold and cunning—dark and deadly as glossy black ice. 

Unseen levin arced through the air. Samantha cleared her throat and ignored the way static crackled between the two men. “My virtue needs no guarding, I thank you very much,” she said archly, wrapping her scarf around tighter.

“So you say,” Haurchefant answered, stare grazing over her now-hidden neckline. _“So you most certainly say.”_

In her periphery, Estinien tensed. He took a stiff breath through his nose. 

Then, to her astonishment, she felt an armored hand creep around the small of her back, jointed gloves curling, clawed tips hooked in her layers.

_Mine._

Even as she scowled— _I belong to no one—_

Instinctively, she shivered.

“Have _you_ something to say, Ser Haurchefant?” The roll of Estinien’s rough, assertive voice was like outright venom—throttling, noxious, _overpowering._

He _knew._ Somehow he could _sense_ the contest in the air.

Her bedmate issued a challenge to the man that yearned to replace him.

“By all means,” Estinien growled. _“Speak your mind.”_

Impervious, Haurchefant took a step forward. “Gladly.” His lips curled into a grin of matching, dazzling malice, his sparkling eyes sardonic. “Though some might advise you to _be wary what you wish for.”_

Estinien’s fingers spread to grip her tighter. She felt his body loom nearer. “And some might suggest taking care where you tread.” His voice was little more than a rumble of thunder, his peppery scent prickling her senses. 

She chanced a look up. 

Beyond the long, silver fringe of his lashes, Estinien’s pale hair shaded his stare. Still, she saw something sharp shimmer there—

A creature caged and carnivorous, clever and _aware._

Haurchefant, mouth still curved like a viper, leaned in. They were the same exact height. “Be not grasping, said the dragon,” he purred darkly. His face tilted, foxlike. “Hoard not _forbidden treasures.”_

A muscle in Estinien’s jaw fluttered. He went completely rigid beside her, energy coiled, concentrated. His next words came out in a low, haunting simmer. “It might behoove you to abstain from waxing upon the _forbidden_ in my presence, Haurchefant.”

“Oh ho,” huffed the other. “But the forbidden was never my weakness,” he testified. “My more dubious conquests breathe in the open—and my lovers, at the least, have all been _very abreast.”_

Samantha’s ears perked. She itched with dread and interest; wondered what bones were yet buried.

“Estinien,” she said under her breath, slanting toward him, face turned up. “Tell me what he means.”

The palm at her backbone snatched her, fierce and sudden. Her eyebrows rose as she was manhandled; pressed against the column of his body, hard in drachen armor. Thumb and fingers hooked at her waist, perhaps the most public display of affection they had shared. Estinien leaned down, tips of his tresses tickling her face. 

“Not now,” he whispered, eyes still fixed on the other.

The hound bared his teeth, and the wily fox cackled.

“And so the man of grit and undevotion shows his hand,” taunted Haurchefant.

Estinien’s lips curled in a snarl. “You knew well my _damned bloody_ _hand,”_ he rumbled. “Else you would not _goad me.”_

Haurchefant laughed. “Mayhap in the future you will take better care to hide it.”

Estinien’s grip was unyielding—almost _painful_ —and Samantha’s pulse began to sprint. Her cheeks were hot, lips tingling with reproach and admonition, but her captor spat a growl before she could open her mouth. 

“I will hide nothing,” he muttered.

He—

 _“What?”_

It was her voice. She craned her neck to gawk at him. 

His chest rose faster. Armor rattled. Estinien tipped his chin to look down at her, shaded eyes stern and biting. 

Pale hair cascaded, framing his face. Lines creased his brow. His handsome lips were chapped, _unsmiling,_ and he wet them, hefting her nearer. This close, she could taste him—search his stunning, staggering, aquiline facets—see the certain somber softness he held sometimes, shrouded in the pitch of his stare. 

And, then and there—in sight of Haurchefant and anyone past the half-open entrance—

Estinien Wyrmblood, Azure Dragoon of Ishgard, kissed the Warrior of Light.

It stole away her breath. 

She gasped, and his tongue snaked past her lips.

Estinien traced a slow, hidden path—licked the roof of her mouth—and aching curled, hot in her marrow.

His flavor made air become smoky and shallow. Hunger howled in her heart, loud and feral, and every bruise and bite mark— _every place he stained and claimed her_ —burned back to life. In them, she felt the phantoms of his fingers, his teeth at her throat; the ghost of him pulsing, insistent, _inside her—_

All at once, she impatiently craved him.

A tiny, needy whimper caught in her throat. Dimly skittish, Estinien watched through long, silver lashes as they parted, dragging the tips of their noses together. _You are mine,_ he mouthed—took her lower lip between his teeth and tugged gently—locked her with eyes the blue of quietest midnight.

 _Mine._

Her knees buckled. 

She grappled his pauldrons for balance. 

Silent but satisfied, he braced a forearm at her back, watching her intently.

“Ass,” she grunted, squirming away. It came out half groan.

Beside them, tiny cracks lanced through Haurchefant’s façade. Before they noticed, he puffed back up with bravado. “Well,” he said, both eyebrows raised high on his forehead. “That was unexpected. But even I must admit it was impressive.” He chuckled, breathy. “And if that was any indication of the _bedroom—”_

Estinien was opening his mouth, to brag or to backbite, but Samantha interrupted.

“Both of you, enough,” she croaked. 

The Warrior of Light touched her sore, swollen lips with her thumb and sighed noisily, doubled down on indignity. “Ser Aymeric has been waiting for—hells know how long,” she muttered, rearranging her cowl. “And this complete lump of a bollock,” she glowered at Estinien, “Decided to— _whatever that just was.”_

The lump of a bollock shifted his weight, looking bizarrely, uncharacteristically _sheepish._ “Pardon.”

Instantly, twinkles returned to Haurchefant’s eyes. “What a predicament indeed,” he agreed, staring at keenly at Estinien. “Do you plan to lay such claim to my lady in sight of our Lord Vicomte?”

“I swear to swiving heaven,” Estinien snarled, “If you keep saying ‘ _my lady’—”_

“My lady is my lady is _my—”_

“Shut your mouths,” barked Samantha. 

Haurchefant was hunched over, quilted doublet bunched at his waist, lips set in a thin, taut smile. Beneath the shell of his armor, Estinien’s long body was stiff, clearly ready to pounce on the other. 

She frowned between the two of them and huffed. “I’m going to the Intercessory,” she announced.

“Go on,” Greystone encouraged, un-bending, turning to gesture with both of his hands. He smiled, wide and sphinxlike. “Make attendance. Convene and converse with the Commander who _anxiously awaits.”_

Estinien levelled another bitter glare at his would-be rival. Then he flexed his hands and prowled out the door, grumbling under his breath. The Warrior of Light took a beat to scowl at his backside; pulled her gloves on, one by one, and braced herself. She turned on her heel, but Haurchefant’s hand at her elbow gave her pause. 

He stared down at her, lips and brow tense.

Her own face crinkled up at him in answer. “What is it?”

He swallowed dryly. “Nothing,” he said, extremely unconvincing.

She narrowed her eyes. “If you have something to tell me—”

“My lips are sealed,” he vowed, something restrained in his subdued, cerulean eyes. “But perhaps—” An idea seemed to strike him. “After the conference has commenced—a mug or three of chocolate would not be uninvited?”

She coughed a laugh. “So long as they come without _incitement.”_

His lips quirked. “On my honor, I will be cordial,” he promised. “Convivial. Splendidly—”

He paused for effect, gesturing to himself.

Slowly. _With both hands._

“Considerate.”

Samantha stared at him.

Coughed.

It took her one breath to unpack what he said. Another to measure the look in his eyes— _both wholesome and obscene._ Haurchefant’s mouth was shut, but his face was one unmistakable cackle.

“Vile,” she barked, shoving him away.

She tried for the door, but he snagged her wrist gently. “Consider it,” he repeated, genuflecting with thespian grace. Haurchefant knelt and brushed his mouth across her gloved knuckles, gazing up through his lashes. She felt the heat of his breath. “This loyal knight-errant is yours for the taking.”

He kissed her hand.

A strangled laugh of frustration escaped her.

_No. No, no, no—_

“No,” she wheezed, bristling.

From where he stooped below her, he shrugged. “The fact remains.”

Gingerly, but with intention, she pushed back his grinning face. “Keep your facts to yourself.”

☽ ❅ ☾

* * *


	5. My Heart's Aflame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The curative virtues of steam are well-lauded, not to mention the bathing—"
> 
> Aymeric choked on hot cocoa. “Not the baths—”
> 
> Samantha wheezed. “The what?”
> 
> “My goodness,” Haurchefant leaned into her personal bubble. “Mineral baths, my sweet lady.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aymeric POV, followed by Haurchefant POV.  
> Or: finally, the premise.
> 
>   
> my mind has changed, my body's frame, but god I like it  
> my heart's aflame, my body's strained, but god I like it

* * *

☾ ✧ ☽

In the quietude that kept him while he waited, Aymeric de Borel paced the length of the room.

Anxious. _Uneasy._ Reluctant to admit—

He was wholly unprepared.

Yes, he wished to confess what he, too, was hiding. But knowing now what he did—about their dalliance— _Samantha, Estinien—_

His traitorous heart gave a stutter.

Estinien. Layman long privy to his lord’s clandestine affections; knight dragoon, his finest ally—finest _friend_ —and the gentle Commander’s first and finest _secret,_ zealously, jealously treasured. But surely the Hero never realized; never knew she was counted among them. Surely Borel kept his fresh captivation for _her_ far more passably veiled.

_Had he not?_

His boots scraped to a halt by the fire.

At the merest thought of her knowing— _comprehending—_ his pulse rushed to drown him by the neck.

 _Nay._

His spine stiffened.

She did not. _Could not discover it._ Not when the one he adored so clearly _claimed her._ Not when Aymeric himself was yet enmeshed in Wyrmbloodian nostalgia, too obsessed with dreams long past and best forgotten. Better to forget her altogether. Far safer than sinking too deep. For indeed, beguiling and bewitching though she proved herself to be, not even the Warrior of Light could distract him from _Estinien_. 

Aymeric was never strong enough to surrender him; never fully able to set his wounded heart _free._

Not from love. Not from _loving him—_

And he feared it made him weak.

Perhaps it was better then, he thought, to be alone. Alone instead of subsumed by confusion—the threat of worse heartaches removed by seclusion. Solitude proved, at the least, a more predictable companion.

And Aymeric, only son of House Borel, was hardly a stranger to aloneness.

So, as the fire restlessly dwindled, it was with a calm and bitter resignation that he buttressed his defenses; steeled himself, rampart to fortification. Towering and lonesome, a steeple he must be. Divert all attention from the grounds of the cathedral—the boneyard, the narthex—pay the rambling no heed. The windows are painted and shrouded in webs; good only for casting dimmed and faded silhouettes. There is nothing of import within. Nothing to be sought there but dust and dry whispers, remnants of incense and intimate hymns. 

Best to conceal himself, so neither one would see—

Neither his fierce, dear foundling, nor the Hero that unknowingly bound him.

The fire flickered. Slowly, Aymeric stepped along the flagstone pavers of the Intercessory. His heelprints tapped a rhythm, Fury willing, to ground him. Ice-pale eyes turned toward the hearth, and he surveyed the flames; studied their twisting and bending. So much like the cinders swiftly blending, his feelings were strata, wistfully wending—

His warm, candid heart his tenderest facet.

 _You are far too soft to understand me,_ Estinien said, that long-lost halcyon summer. And _then,_ perhaps, it was fact. But after many more risky ignitions—burns and transgressions and festering blisters—

In the passing of the years, with several varieties of _assistance—_

Aymeric learned, at last, to be _guarded._

_Or so I dare to guess._

Pensive, soft, and melancholic, he sighed; watched one particularly red and glittering ember rise to vanish up into the flue. Molten, ephemeral, a momentary glimmer. Aymeric himself had a habit of miserably _glimmering_ —planting his affections in evanescent grounds. His predilection for such suffering baffled him; troubling, at best, to understand. Why could he not crave a simpler conquest? Why set his wretched sights upon the most byzantine targets, attracted to the intractable—unattainable— _unattractable?_

_Flagellant. Deviant. Unrepentant degenerate._

He was fundamentally flawed. Profoundly unsound. What else could be contended? His penchant for anguish was something perverse, and he paid himself no favors in _obstinate pining_ —dogged Estinien ever after—wished for distant, star-crossed absolution, riding the redoublings and retrogradations of their relationship. For a comfort, at least, they remained steadfast friends. 

His other endeavors were feeble at best. 

In truth, as it seemed, after every wayward stab at a companion, he was left completely disenchanted; always parsing his faults and desires, trapped between guilt and bewilderment, emptiness, indignity, _repentance—_ ever more ineffable feelings. He craved pardon from sins never committed. Hollowness blossomed inside him, gnawing, unfeasible to fill. He starved for the passion he never quite permitted—searched for it, once, like a vile beast, _possessed._

A log snapped. A shower of sparks darted up toward the chimney. 

He yearned, still, to find it—that _passion_. But providence bound him, perhaps to lonelier fates. For what were his wishes but flashes in the night, absurd in the gaze of leering Ishgard? After so much time among her statesmen, sly and duplicitous, Aymeric knew deceit and dissatisfaction. As a derivative, he was trained in the art of it himself—could mold and well temper expectations. In etiquette, he was proficient; schooled in decorum, politicking traditions. As a diplomat, he rarely floundered, seldom stammered—

In his right, a highborn socialite. 

And so, as he might for a banquet or a battle, he strove to _equip_. He forecast what might transpire; predicted several outcomes of the clash nearly at hand. Like a card game or long match of chess, expect the unexpected. Foresee the unforeseen—

_Better to conceal. Under no circumstances reveal—_

_Tell her. Tell him. Tell both; let them bear witness. Throw your dark biases open—_

_Bury your affections. There can be no use for them now—not when you must confront—_

The door to the Intercessory creaked open, and the sentry cleared his throat.

“The Azure Dragoon and the Warrior of Light.”

Paused by the fire, Ser Aymeric straightened—Vicomte de Borel, sole heir to his House—Lord Commander of the Temple Knights—bastard son of Archbishop Thordan, steadfast servant of unforgiving Ishgard—

Aymeric stood there, stiff and unbent, and his heart skipped enough beats to lose count.

His head spun. He watched his guests approach the table—the Hero he wished would stop haunting his reflections, and Estinien—his dearest, most damnable, most compelling companion.

Even bundled nigh to the eyebrows in scarf and cape and mantle, Samantha was fierce and formidable. Her dark stare blistered out beneath the shadows of her shroud, flicking to Estinien as he ambled in alongside her.

Aymeric was pierced by a question.

Did she know? Had he _told her? Estinien,_ ruddy with the bite of the cold Coerthan wind, swarthy skin flushed, long pale hair fallen from its plait. He was beautiful. _Fearsome._ And when those deep indigo eyes rose to find the ice pale pair that beheld him, the Commander’s nervous heart rate hastened past all restraint. Blood became frost and inferno. Thought became smoke. Suddenly Ser Aymeric, the silver-tongued speaker, stumbled through his salutation. 

“Grelcome,” he choked. Quickly tried again. “Do come—in.”

Samantha blinked. Estinien stared hard in silence. Locked to that sharp, familiar, eviscerating glare, Aymeric wheezed and sallied forth. “Join me,” he bit out, spreading his arms to gesture to the table.

After one more breath of hesitation, Samantha stepped close to him, moving toward a seat. “Ser Aymeric,” she said, gruff and cautious, her low voice gone hoarser from cold. She cleared her throat and dragged a chair along the pavers, piling herself into it. 

Estinien paced along past her, one further. He jerked his chin at the meager selection. 

“In which are you perched?”

Aymeric gawked and willed his fast pulse to be tranquil. As coolly, _serenely_ , as possible, he placed both gloved hands upon the nearest chair. Estinien swept to sit beside it at once, between the Hero and Liege. The chair scooted loudly. 

Samantha snorted—held her tongue. Her eyes flashed nervously up to Borel.

 _Best behavior._

His station so often inspired decorum, an air of stifling propriety that— “Well,” barked Estinien, brusquely. The stone-faced officer pushed his loose hair back and grunted. “Here we are.” He closed his eyes. “Commence the conversation, Lord Commander.”

Samantha’s probing gaze pierced Borel to the quick. “Yes.” She cleared her throat again, uneasy. He glanced down to find her still bundled in fleeces, watching him like some nervous, hawkish snowbird. “What did you wish to discuss?” 

A dark wisp of fringe crisscrossed her forehead as she spoke. He wanted to smooth that errant tuft behind her ear—to tell her how blessed, how beholden, how absurdly _besotted_ — “As you know—” His fingers tensed on the spine of the chair. “As you are assuredly aware—”

His brow scrunched. _Why was this already grueling?_

He began again. “I must confront the Archbishop,” he said, his voice low and tense. He wet his lips, too aware they were chapped— _not that anyone would notice—not that you would be using your mouth—not for anything other than speaking—_

“Evidently,” drawled Estinien. He made a show of sprawling in his chair; comfortable, posturing, _lowered defenses._ He tipped back his prominent chin to stare up at the speaker, dark blue eyes glinting. “And how might we assist?”

It was a challenge. A dare.

_An invitation._

Aymeric swallowed hard. “You, among all my officials, are privy to my full intentions,” he said. His voice wanted to tremble. He did not allow it. “The Warrior of Light, however,” he glanced at her for effect. “Less so.”

“Ser Aymeric.” She was volunteering. “Make your wishes known and I will deliver.” She sat a bit straighter, dark stare wide and eager, sparkling, _enthusiastic_. “Please. You need only ask.”

He did not intend to grip the chair harder. _She knows not what she implied._

Unaware of the things he abruptly imagined—her eyes gazing up at him, adoring, _hypnotized—_ she watched as, silently, he calmed himself; flogged his degenerate whims into submission; forestalled the blood that rushed rapidly, distractingly _southward._

_Please, Ser Aymeric—_

Wood groaned beneath his palms. Aymeric closed his eyes against the building heat between his legs; the sudden urge to faint. “I thank you,” he managed, composure maintained. He hoped the grin he aimed at her appeared less forced than it felt. Less _feral._ “I hoped to converse regarding—something of that nature, but—” _Why was she still in her scarves?_ “Are you not overwarm?” _What was he asking?_ Black curls fell into his eyes and he pushed them aside, smiling pleasantly, blandly. “Allow me to relieve you of your cloak and paraphernalia?”

Was it his imagination, or—was she _blushing?_

“N-no, no,” she stammered, turtling into her bundles of layers. “’m fine.”

Blessedly sidetracked from his lascivity prior, Aymeric blinked several times. “But—”

“Let the woman wear twelve mounds of cloaks if she desires,” grumbled the third party, and when Borel shifted the focus to him, Wyrmblood was undeniably ruddy. Still he levelled a fixed, intent stare. “And stop dodging the tangent. We already know about bloody damn Thordan—tell us _what else was on your mind.”_

“I—” Aymeric’s throat felt crammed with ash. _Conceal._ “There was nothing else. Nothing of consequence—”

“What a bald-faced lie,” Estinien groused. His pale brows arched, peeved and sharp. “Either say it outright—lay claim to said _intentions—_ or I will be left with no choice but to weasel them out.”

A dry cough from the withering pale-eyed white-liar. “There will be no _weaseling out—”_

 _“Weaseling?”_ Samantha snort-laughed. She glanced between the bickerers with unhidden interest. “I’ve never seen you act like this,” she admitted, breathless, _attentive,_ and Aymeric realized, belatedly, _heaven bless—_

 _My guard is down._

Breached by Estinien’s gambit, forever helpless to resist.

Aymeric took a parched breath; cast a rueful glance to the lady. “I apologize for impropriety,” he muttered. “You must understand. Ser Estinien is an _old friend.”_ A bitterer glare at the comrade in question. “Insofar as further explanation, forthcoming or not, my motives are far from peculiar, I assure—”

“Bollocks and drivel.” Shadowy eyes flicked down and up again, unblinking, _unnerving_. “Tell us your _ulterior ones.”_

“Ulterior _motives?”_

Samantha’s attention was scalding as Aymeric drummed up futile refutations. “My purpose in this,” he insisted, ignoring the crack in his faltering voice, “Was— _uniquely diplomatic—”_

“Diplomatic my arse,” the hound grumbled. Those dark blue eyes were perceptive. _Seductive._

Sweat began to dampen the back of Aymeric’s neck, his curls vaguely clammy. “Perhaps unwise of you to goad me,” he muttered, less threat, more thought become sound. His eyes flashed to the Warrior and back again.

His officer shrugged. “Is it wise of you to force undue resistance?”

The Lord Commander faltered. 

_Gaps in the line—_ every instinct, _disengage._

He took a thin breath. 

_To hell, for once, with instinct._

Aymeric turned to Samantha; found her wide eyes. “What has he told you?”

She blinked, black eyebrows high, the rest of her face still well-buried. “Pardon?”

 _Not incredibly much, then._ Oddly disappointing.

Wyrmblood’s body language was tense. “I dare not speak on your behalf,” he huffed, pinning Aymeric with an accusatory glare. “Never had the tongue for it.” He rearranged his arms and grumbled under his breath. “Sermons— _confessions_ —are hardly _my_ forte.”

“Of course.” Borel’s heart stuttered again. “Forgive the supposition.” He swallowed and steeled himself afresh. “In that case—” The sweat at his nape was gone cold. _The time has come for a disclosure._ “Where should I presume to begin?”

“At the beginning,” his silver-haired heckler’s driest suggestion. Then Estinien made a show of clearing his throat. “Surely you recall, how thrilled you were about that _fabled Hero—_ ” he aped at a honeyed, Borelian cadence. “An aetherspinner, I believe; a scholar of magicks— _exceedingly intriguing.”_

Ignoring the eyes of said sorceress upon them, Aymeric aimed a deadpan glance at his impersonator.

“Skilled in arcane arts,” Estinien continued. He trilled his tongue around the consonants, twirling a hand in the air. _“Arrayed in celestial favor.”_

Aymeric let his imposing voice swell. “The grace of Hydaelyn is not to be derided,” he said, and Estinien lapsed into silence. Eyes dark as midnight met eyes like bright dawns, a question passing between them.

_Well?_

Borel pinched the bridge of his nose.

He cocked a hip against the table and slid his eyes to the Hero invited. A placid smile curved his lips. “As I told you directly, my friend,” low voice schooled again into calmness. “I followed your activities—”

“With interest.” Her quiet rasp, interrupting. “Bordering on fascination. I remember.”

The room seemed to breathe through a heartbeat of reticence.

“If by ‘fascination’ and ‘interest,’” Estinien muttered, “You mean ‘hoarding every trace of her daguerreotype’—”

_“Estinien—”_

_“You showed me the file—”_

“The _file?”_ Her interest was palpably hot. “Ser—”

“Aymeric,” he blurted, warmth in his cheeks. He forced himself to hold her stare. Had he wits left about him, he might have managed some winsome expression; willed a sly twinkle to brighten his eyes. As it was, he blushed violently as a schoolboy. “No need for Ser—unless you prefer the politeness, of course.”

He could see her puzzling through it; his _blushing,_ the rushed _informality—_

The beast interceded again. “’Twas alarming, you know—his _unabashed esteem.”_ Estinien leaned toward Samantha, his sidewise leer on Aymeric. “My Lord Commander rarely betrays such fixation.” Low, almost a whisper in her ear. “Such _enchantment.”_

Above the folds of the scarf, her cheeks were burning red.

* * *

☽ ❅ ☾

Ser Haurchefant Greystone was not a malevolent man.

He might be a rapscallion—a _rascal,_ in love and in conflict, taking fair digs at companions. But it was a game; never truly vindictive. Surely Estinien knew that. 

Haurchefant frowned thoughtfully to himself.

Perhaps he crossed the faintest line there, despite long years of friendship—despite the bonds forged between comrades in arms. Aymeric, also, was tallied among them. _Halone’s merciful sight;_ take the curse from Borel, besmirched as he was by his birthright: _a holy man’s prime indiscretion_. Though the fruits of Ishgardian errs were hardly judged scarce— _Haurchefant, too, could attest_ —the number of notable men born as bastards was tiny—

Let alone those descended from highborns, favor curried with their House. 

He checked the hour for the twelfth time, stirring hot chocolate. His knack for securing the favor of others was often seen as eccentric. It involved making glowing endorsements—conjuring mirth from thin air—being _shamelessly jolly,_ no room for excuses. He made no apologies, either; not for _in flagrante_ amusement.

He would be remembered, he hoped, for his love of delight.

 _Buoyant, belligerent, bright._

Thus, his cheek was served only in jest, any wickedness meant to cause laughter. Greystone disliked disagreements, themselves; never hoped to burn bridges. He divided the cocoa to mugs. Thus, he would work to promote them—foster every bond and byway’s fond production, up close or from a distance.

Dollops of cream whipped and sweetened from the icebox. A tin of ginger biscuits, _my lady’s favorite—_ custard cream for Aymeric, and, _ah!—_ the cinnamon bark. He arranged the tray with a batch of fragrant sticks, knowing his grumbling friend liked to gnaw them. _Spicy bark, all the better for spicier barking!_

Another glance at the clock. Borel was fond of words, but not one to mince them. Surely the gist of his summons was done. 

_Right then, old boy._ He shouldered outside. _Thus, thus, thus!_

Treats in hand, vapor rising, Haurchefant scampered along the short trek to the— _Falling Snows,_ he corrected, face upturned to catch a sprinkling of ice. A private grin lifted his lips, a cloud of condensation from his chuckle. 

The guard unlatched the door for him at once. He balanced the tray of hot cocoa one-handed, swirling like snow flurries into the room. “I had an inkling something warm and delicious would not be—”

The tension was thicker than smoke.

"—remiss."

He blinked cold from his eyes. 

Estinien leaned on the wall by the fire, arms crossed, the long, armored slant of his body gone tense. Aymeric perched at the edge of the table, chair forgone, both hands clenched. His golden embellishments glittered as he took a stiff breath, a strained smile crossing his beautiful lips. “Ser Haurchefant.”

Only Samantha was properly seated—still bundled up in her mantle. The eyes she turned to the biscuit-bearer were wide and brown and panicked as a fawn, and the urge to _protect_ clawed its way up his chest. 

Haurchefant’s quilted doublet puffed with bluster. He closed the door behind him. “Good heavens,” he huffed, rushing over to place the refreshments. Tray down, boots braced, both hands steadied at his hips, he glanced between the three and raised an eyebrow. “What in the name of Halone occurred in my absence?”

Aymeric looked like he mildly struggled to breathe. “The meeting has—taken a turn,” he said thinly, flusterment pinking his cheeks.

“Taken a—oh _my.”_ Answering ruddiness flushed the asker’s face. “In that case—”

“ _Not that type of turn, Greystone,”_ Estinien hissed, shifting his weight. He grumbled. “I mentioned the bloody _daguerreotypes—”_

“Ah,” Haurchefant’s ominous exhale of insight. “The _file.”_

“Can we _please,”_ Samantha croaked, burrowing deep in the folds of her scarf, “Stop mentioning _the file.”_ She was so red-faced that Haurchefant feared she might erupt. He trotted close to her chair, leaning elbows on the spine—lacing his hands on her cowl-covered scalp.

“I am sensing excessive discomfort,” he announced. “A loss of morale.” He made a show of clearing his throat after blissfully stating the obvious. “It will not be borne—no indeed. I must insist upon fierce redirection.”

Aymeric sighed and reached for a mug of hot cocoa. “And what, pray tell,” his eyes flicked from Floravale to Greystone, “Would you suggest?”

In the periphery, Wyrmblood stiffened. “Do _not—”_

“Aha,” Haurchefant cried, causing Estinien to groan and Samantha to jerk in her chair. He patted her head. “Full glad am I that you asked—”

Estinien slumped, his tines scraping the wall. _“Fury save us.”_

“I would propose a collaborative venture.” The Silver Fuller shuffled through his mental smorgasbord of silvery linings, settling upon something sensationally specific. “A singular synergistic adventure, so to speak.”

Estinien tried to make a wisecrack but Aymeric spoke above him. “Lest you forget, there are _pressing matters_ at hand.”

“Aye, and pressing matters do tend to cause pressure.” Greystone wiggled one hand through the air, a mockery of steam, whistling like a histrionic kettle. “Pressure which— _the room is aware_ —has been bubbling up for some time now. Thus,” he clapped his hands loudly, causing Samantha to flinch, “Must we endeavor toward release; _resolution_. As the very best treatment for tension is sweating it out—”

“Sweating it—” Estinien launched from the wall to interject, but Haurchefant tut-tutted. 

“Calm yourself, my dear Wyrmblood,” he flattened a palm in the air. “The curative virtues of steam are well-lauded, not to mention the _bathing._ Why, warm mineral water itself is medicinal, restorative—”

Aymeric choked on hot cocoa. “Not the baths—”

Samantha wheezed. “The _what?”_

“My goodness,” Haurchefant leaned into her personal bubble, pinching her rosy, scarved cheek. “Mineral baths, my sweet lady.”

“Haurchefant Greystone,” Estinien rumbled, prowling across to the table. “In what depraved lunatic fancy are you _attempting to incorporate the lot of us?”_

The proposer accused merely chortled and tittered. _“Lunatic fancy—_ you _would_ say that, my precious unjolly grinch—” a grunt of Wyrmbloodian outrage was drowned by Greystone’s unremitting chatter, “But of _course_ you must consent to the idea. Such is the _premise_ , though why one might _resist_ such a resplendent invitation is well beyond my realm of—”

“Wait,” Samantha muttered. “What in the world are we hypothetically agreeing—”

“I must confront the Archbishop,” Aymeric’s dwindling insistence.

Haurchefant raised his eyebrows and deferred to the depleted Lord Commander. “But of course, my good man,” and Borel began to deflate with relief—but the barrage remained unfinished. “ _After_ the trip to the baths,” he missed no beats, “Refreshed and relaxed, well-equipped for diplomatic confrontations—”

A wild-eyed Wyrmblood muffled a shout. “If Greystone says ‘baths’ _one more time—”_

“And _you,_ sir, could do with relaxation,” Haurchefant aimed a forefinger at Estinien. The latter spluttered, his objection unintelligible, “But hark, never fear! Should you consent to this unimposing expedition in therapeutic contentment, every creature comfort and essential will be provided—and several decidedly superfluous luxuries besides, but I digress—”

Wyrmblood stared quite desperately at Borel, who crammed his mouth full of custard cream biscuits and shrugged.

Floravale, meanwhile, lifted her chin, struggling to evolve beyond an armrest. “Haurchefant— _what in the hells are you on about?”_

“The sanctuary has been hailed by many names,” he provided, winking down at her. “At but a short hike from this stronghold, generations of Coerthans have partaken of the geothermal caverns and picturesque grottos—”

“Hot springs,” supplied Aymeric, washing down his thick mouthful of pastry with swigs of hot chocolate. He looked utterly nonplussed. “For the sake of argument—” he narrowed his eyes at Haurchefant’s instantaneous grin, “Completely theoretically,” the clarification. “For what sort of— _duration_ —did you forecast this sojourn to last?”

Estinien shoved a stick of cinnamon into his mouth and plopped in a chair, grumbling expletives under his breath. _“Why would you encourage him—”_

“A pair of nights, at the slightest,” came the answer. “One to settle in, one for proper relaxing.”

Samantha’s low, indignant huff. “How can you think of relaxing during—” she huffed again and thrust out her hands. “Apostates and wyrmkings—the _damned Holy See?”_

“Well,” muttered Greystone, wagging a finger, “The war _has_ been on for some one thousand years—give or take a half-moon. And last I checked,” he poked her nose, “Rest was essential for _peak physiological condition.”_

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Frowned, cross-eyed, at his finger. Haurchefant wiggled the tip of her nose back and forth. “Even you must agree, my gallant, valiant, spellbinding lady—each of us could do with a holiday.”

“Perhaps,” she grumbled.

“But who among us can spare so much as one day?” The protest was Aymeric’s. “Indolence, they say, is the workshop of the devil—” and he was the image of drained, overburdened, his glossy black curls disarrayed on his forehead.

_Ever the first to self-sacrifice._

Haurchefant cocked his head to examine his righteous brother knight. “Rejuvenation, then,” he argued. “Think of it not as some slothful retreat—but a boon, both judicious and vital, to replenish the wellbeing of our cherished Lord Commander.”

“My _wellbeing,_ I thank you, is perfectly sound—”

“Best wishes,” Estinien derided, pilfering a cooling mug of cocoa, “Convincing that fuddy-duddy to partake in anything dubiously idle.” He used his tongue to shift the stick in his mouth, positioned for a sip. “Unless your end, of course, is to the benefit of Ishgard.”

Haurchefant harrumphed. “Critic.” He pirouetted in a graceful ramble toward the table, retrieving a custard cream biscuit, pouting back at Samantha. “You never retrieved your hot chocolate, madame!”

“I’ve had quite a bit on my mind,” she groused, crossing her bundled-up arms. There was a sheen of perspiration on her brow. Haurchefant started to wondering— _why—_ and laughed while he choked upon crumbs.

_The love bites._

“What?”

“Not a thing,” he wheezed, while a baffled Borel bemusedly looked on. Estinien scowled. “Merely imagining the good it would do—a vigorous dose of mineral bathing—tremendously healing for _aether_ , as well—”

Samantha sighed loudly and threw up her hands. “Alright.” A bark of scandal from Estinien. Aymeric froze in his chair. “Count me in.” Haurchefant stifled a blurt of pure glee. “Only because you were _never planning to drop it._ So,” she grumbled, lurching from her chair. “Do tell.”

The Warrior of Light turned to fix the victorious Silver Fuller with a probing, curious stare. 

“Where, by the Twelve, are we going?”

☾ ☄ ☽

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Hello. Yes.  
> The circus continues.  
> Thank you so much for reading.  
>    
> In other news: surprising no one, this "oneshot" is now an entire AU!  
>    
> /scuttles down the drain


	6. Mirror My Malady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Try as she might to deny it, their impromptu excursion was laden with promise; connotations she feared to digest. But they were past hot-blooded adolescence—four full-grown adults in their prime, beyond such pent-up encounters.
> 
> ... Or were they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sexual tension THE MOVIE (part one)
> 
> This is becoming a MONSTER (I should have known). WoL POV, with a break between scenes, followed by Aymeric POV. Established WoL/Estinien with thoughts of WoL/Haurchefant and WoL/Aymeric, hinted past relationships. Historical Aymeric/Estinien with current sexual tension. Lots and lots of emotional baggage, and teasing (ultimately good-natured). Everyone's repressed, except maybe Haurchefant.
> 
> mirror my malady,  
> transfer my tragedy?

* * *

✧ ☄ ☽

If they agreed, every need would be provided—plus some indulgence, besides. 

So was Ser Haurchefant’s promise.

Still, there were many arrangements to make; firsts-in-command to be beckoned, private belongings to reckon and fetch. The four of them meandered toward the exit. “As for transportation,” Haurchefant said, waggling eyebrows and slapping his legs, “Place your faith in _me.”_

A deadpan stare from Estinien. “Are you planning to tote us on your back?”

“Nay,” cried the Fuller, azure eyes filled with mirth. “You know I keep a carriage here at Camp. By Halone,” he cackled, launching forth to jostle the other’s bristling shoulders. “You overestimate me, my sweet grinchling.”

Trailing behind, yet downwind of Estinien’s hiss— _never call me that again—_ Samantha and Aymeric glanced at each other, eye to side-eye. Borel arched a shapely brow. “To be entirely fair,” he began, narrow-eyed, the words a resonant rumble, “’Tis all too easy to midjudge him. Ser Haurchefant has ever been possessed of … impossible whimsy.” In his sidewise stare, hidden meanings. _Believe._

There were stories to be had. 

Knowing Haurchefant, _several._

“Oh, tut-tut,” Greystone clucked, cheerful, teasingly flicking his nose. “Where would the two—or daresay _three_ of you be,” a significant gleam in those sunny blue eyes, “Bereft of my brand of goodwill and entertainment?”

“Infinitely better,” Estinien grumbled. Haurchefant smirked and reached for his chin, but before the Knight could grapple and wag him, Wyrmblood ducked out of reach. _“Get your bloody hands off me—”_

Samantha’s mind raced with yet-unasked questions; thoughts of the pasts shared between Coerthan sons: three Ishgardian seedlings from various roots, highborn and lowborn … foundlings, alike. 

_Or so the rumor goes._

Her eyes made hesitant contact again with— “S—Aymeric,” she stammered. Her tongue snagged against the confiscated honorific. It was his wish— _unless you prefer the politeness—_ and she swore to deliver. Still, she felt absurd; stripped as his name without the ‘Ser.’ But _Twelve,_ was it imagined? Or did his eyes light and glitter like diamonds at merely the sound, unadorned, on her lips?

“Samantha.” He fixed her with the weight of his focus. It was a force she could sense, whole and centered in her marrow.

 _You have my undivided interest._

Her heart thudded, unbidden. _Ridiculous._ To think that she, for any reason, could hold such a creature’s attention. He was capable, gifted—not to mention outrageously lovely. But her mind stirred a scene nonetheless: Borel bent above a bulging portfolio, attending a wyrm’s hoard of personal facts— _Samantha Rosalyn Floravale, Warrior of Light_ —

She bent in a half-bow, stymied by bundles of layers. “My apologies for the meeting,” she gasped, furiously blushing. Stare on her feet, the mental image only sharpened—his rook-black curls disarrayed, pale eyes hooded, thumb stroking over his beautiful lips as he studied a print of her portrait.

_He rarely betrays such fixation. Enchantment—_

“My friend.” Aymeric’s voice threatened to crack. He cleared his throat. “The proceedings of the— _meeting—_ were no fault of yours. I alone assume responsibility.” She risked a glance to find him smiling pleasantly down at her, dawn-blue eyes brilliant, bright. His beauty was something obscene. “Though I will concede that Estinien, _perhaps,_ shares some scintilla of culpability.”

A snort-scoff from the thus blamed. Escaping the grappling Greystone, lips bedight with a fresh stick of spice, Estinien strolled to her right. His hand found the small of her back. Drachen armor whispered, metallic, as long fingers curled to clasp. “My Lord Commander,” directed above. It was a purr. “You wound me.”

“Bitterly, I pray,” the answering quip. Borel’s eyes were blank, his voice completely flat.

Samantha glanced between the two in continued confusion, taken aback by this hidden rapport. Between them stretched an untold connection—everything suddenly some prehistoric jest. Estinien turned to her, then, the jab absolutely ignored. “Shall I escort you back to the Manor Fortemps?” He turned the cinnamon stick with his tongue. Turned it again, for good measure. Samantha stared hard into dark, taunting eyes—an effort to ignore what he so wanted her to notice. “Such would conclude my original mission,” his silver lashes lowered, “Unless my Commander should issue another.”

“Oh _do_ allow me.” The song of Haurchefant’s voice. And at the left base of her hip, another hand meandered down. Greystone’s fingers stretched to tease the tips of Estinien’s, who cringed but held his ground.

“My offer stands,” Estinien’s growl. He scowled. 

Samantha craned toward Haurchefant’s dazzling grin. “And I have business with my father,” he said, eyebrows raised.

And back to Estinien. His dark glare flicked to Borel. _Help me, damn it._

The Lord Commander shrugged, impassive, bland. “You could escort me instead.”

Estinien stared at him, dead-eyed. 

Haurchefant. “That settles it—”

“I’ll escort my own self.” Samantha tried a page from Aymeric’s playbook; kept her voice completely flat. She worked to force insipid ennui to her face. _How in the hells did he manage?_ “You can sort your— _additional motives_ out amongst yourselves.”

“My lady,” Haurchefant’s insulted affectation. He swept to meet her face-to-face, blocking Aymeric from view—earning a scathing glare from Estinien. “My motives are pure as driven snow—”

“Rot and the lot of us know it,” Estinien grunted. Still, his hand was gone from her back. “But by all means, _fair lady,”_ she watched from the side of her eye as he crept a slinking step. Menacing grace, like a caged, wild cat. “By the leave of my Lord Commander— _take yourself.”_

She cocked a brow—tilted a peek past Haurchefant. Her stare caught Borel’s. “Should our Warrior wish to dismiss you,” Aymeric spoke to Estinien, but kept his gaze on her. “You are dismissed.” His ears were going ruddy. “She is hardly mine to command.” And while his face remained vacant, a blush pinked his neck. Again, like a trick of the light—something she surely imagined—a blaze of yearning sparked through his expression, brief and hot as levin-fire.

Samantha blinked. “Should we reconvene here, then? Once obligations are settled?”

“On the hour,” Haurchefant announced, hands clapped together. “Your carriage awaits.”

* * *

Hardly through the Fortemps door, and she was met with an ambush.

“Where in the world were you off to all morning?”

Tataru was dressed in a floor-length pink coat. Samantha stared down at her, arranging fractured excuses. “Ah—well—”

“We came to fetch you for breakfast, you know.” Alphinaud, looming up out of nowhere. A tome was shoved under his arm, his garb very casual, _Coerthan._ “But you were gone without a trace.” He cocked a white brow.

“I had a summons to attend.” Her voice sounded mechanical. She coughed. “A summons again, as it were.”

“What summons?” Now Leveilleur was affronted. He crossed his arms, fingers drumming on the cover of his book. “I was never told about a summons.”

“Nor I,” Tataru chirped, hands perched on her hips.

Samantha shrugged. “Who am I to question Ishgard’s Lord Commander?” She smiled helplessly down at her friends, regrettably aware of how idiotic she looked. “Surely you wouldn’t have me _reject_ his invitation?”

Tataru cocked her head. “His invitation _where?”_

“To the summons,” Samantha stammered. “He—wished to discuss his plan to confront the Archbishop.”

“And?” Alphinaud, staring, nonplussed and unblinking. “Did he devise a stratagem?”

An awkward laugh. “Not _exactly—”_

“Why are you still in your snow cloak?”

The door behind her banged open, a towering figure barreling through. “Up to your chambers _at once_ sweet madame,” and as a flurry of snow whirled around her, powerful forearms closed at her middle, lifting her into the air. Samantha wheezed as Haurchefant physically hauled her up the stairs. A chorus of confusion warbled skyward from the others.

“What the devil is happening _now?”_

_“Samantha—”_

“No time for questions,” Haurchefant cried, hefting her into a firm bridal carry. Breathless, pressed tight to his broad, quilted chest, she looked to find his eyes—vibrant noon-blue. “Fair lady.” He smiled down, shale fringe shading his lashes. “Gather your things. I will conclude the matter with Count Edmont posthaste, and await you in the parlor.”

She laughed weakly, rocked gently with the motion of his stride. “You planned to escort me, regardless.”

“Indeed.” A flash of worry in his stare. “Unless, of course, you dismiss me.” One arm at her back, one cradling her legs, Haurchefant carried her easily, effortless. “The Vicomte may not presume to command you,” he looked ahead now, her vista the base of his chin. “And neither would I. But where you lead, my celestial mistress, be assured—I will follow.”

Her heart began to race. Down the hall, around the corner, they approached the gate of her chambers. By the time he placed her gently by the threshold, her cheeks were flushed, her pulse abruptly alight. “Haurchefant—”

He wagged a finger through the air, affectionately tapping her nose. “Allow me to show you a pleasant retreat.” He pressed a wisp of hair behind her ear and leaned in, head tilted fondly. “Permit yourself to be at ease. And if, in the process, you revise considerations _—_ ” she pursed her lips and he drew back at once, a blinding grin on his lips. “Wherever— _however—_ in any manner whatsoever you prefer—”

She reached out to deliver a good-natured pinch. He leapt gracefully away. “Go speak with your father, you diabolical bother.”

He started down the hall, wantonly sashaying. “Persistence, they say, is the key to _success.”_

“Or,” she jostled the doorknob, “The key to my boot up your arse.”

His jubilant laughter carried through the open-and-shut again door, her pulse still stubbornly pounding. Alone with him in the hall, however briefly—held so dear that she could score the syncopation of his heartbeat—her body wanted to _imagine;_ to dream of him in ways she wished were strictly forbidden.

Wished, because Haurchefant wasn’t a Scion. He was exempt, in theory, from Thancred’s old warning, a rule yet longtime adopted. “It was sensible,” she whispered, to herself and lost Waters, searching the room for her patch-covered satchel.

The pain of each removal, now, felt raw and nauseating—hells’ fire, hot, overtaking. She banned thought of them all, last summer, last fall; entombed them in crypts of tumbling brick and spiraling crystal. Samantha never allowed herself to remember—not Y’shtola’s impatient instructions—nor Thancred jesting past homestyle breakfasts— _nor freckles like stardust and persimmon hair_ —

Minfilia’s arms were soft, but strong as a vise, crimped blonde tresses like silk at her neck. 

Samantha screwed her eyes shut.

 _No._

Now and ever after, in this winter bleak and bright, she ignored the chilled edge of autumn and all it dragged behind. The damp taste of heartache grew stale, but chased faster—so many star-crossed disasters. Expecting loss like morning dew, she refused to let Haurchefant nearer; refused to bloom for his merciless sunshine. How long would it be, before he was gone, too? Could she keep him shut _out,_ knowing what she now _knew?_

He dreamt to join her, as more than mere friends—while she hunted a grumbling storm cloud instead.

Samantha huffed and stalked to check her roses. _Enough metaphors._

She thrust open the balcony door.Haurchefant put it to words— _hides a herdsman’s good heart beneath the growling._ But she hardly needed it said. She dragged in pot after pot and carefully tended, unwither blessings refreshed. Strive as Estinien might to disguise it, she knew his warmth well. He shared it but rarely, and yet, when he did—

His hair, a curtain of moonlight. _This is the last time, I swear it._

Her face flushed red. What in the world would become of them now? Wyrmblood admitted what blossomed between them—in full view of Greystone, no less. She prowled to the dresser. Two nights with him and the _others,_ with the Fuller’s intentions declared. Ser Aymeric, even, seemed _excessively aware._

_Don’t imagine it again. Anything but the damned file—_

Her well-loved satchel bulged as she crammed in spare handfuls: nightgown, jumper, pantalettes. Try as she might to deny it, their impromptu excursion was laden with promise; connotations she feared to digest. 

_Debaucherous diversions. Primordial pleasures._

She blushed fiercely. No. This was no covert tryst betwixt mouth-breathing classmates, quick to turn to carousing. They were past hot-blooded adolescence—four full-grown adults in their prime, beyond such pent-up encounters.

Or were they?

 _Gods, no!_ She closed her eyes.

 _Enough with nonsensical assumptions._ Ridiculous, that Greystone begged for a tumble. Twaddle, her habits with Wyrmblood— _the inverse of pristine._ Should she question Borel, the theoretically most _sensical of all?_

What in the world was she _thinking—and why did it make her excited?_ To dream of tonight, in close quarters with _them;_ the most beautiful creature in Ishgard, the beast swiftly stealing her long-frozen heart—and the nearest, dearest friend she was yet brave enough to remember.

* * *

☾ ✧ ☽

“Why in all the _damned hells,”_ Estinien shimmied his way from a husk of shorn armor, “Would you let Greystone run with this _harebrained debacle?”_ The way he was hunched, he looked like a spire-top goblin, guarding the steeple, bared to the waist. “Are the underthings kept in the upper—”

“Left drawer.” Aymeric’s brow crinkled as he watched his friend saunter over, unlatching his boots one by one. Borel was packed and ready, dressed down from his colors in something less eye-catching—a warm high-necked shirt and matching trousers, charcoal black. Above this he planned to don fleeces and mantle, lending his companion several overclothes besides. The journey to Bale’s small chalet would take them backward, and as Estinien kept an old stockpile of things in Aymeric’s closets, he oft haunted the Manor.

 _Well._

Not so often, anymore.

One side of Aymeric’s mouth crooked up in a grin. How long had it been, since he had the dubious pleasure? “Forgive the interruption,” he began, struggling not to chuckle as Estinien wrestled his greaves. “But do you recall—”

“When last you had me in this bedroom?” A loud, throaty scoff. Estinien kicked down his chausses and flipped shimmering salt-white hair from his face, looking up through pale lashes. “I seem to recall an understanding.”

Aymeric let his eyes hood and fought back a bitter smile. _“Never you mind?”_

“Aye.” Stripped down to smalls and clutching shucked drachen shells, Estinien rattled toward the rucksack on the floor. In the radiance of the fire, Aymeric traced the hard planes of the other’s long body—broad shoulders and angles and sinew, all corded with powerful muscle. He was covered in scars new and faded, fresh bruises. Some were evidently from the thrashing at the Aery. Others ornamented his backbone, tiny crescents, half-moons—

To whet his tongue, Borel employed the forgone bitters from before. “’Twas not the fault of Greystone,” to answer the previous question. “My decision to go. As doubtless you are aware."

Estinien paused in his task, bent above the opened pack. “But in hoping for moments with her,” he agreed, “You yet cater to the _badger.”_

Aymeric snorted. “The fox would paint a more flattering depiction."

“Weasel, badger— _fox with bleeding grapes.”_ Estinien withdrew a jerkin, darned gloves, and rough slacks, stretching back to full height. “Haurchefant covets, same as you or I.”He snorted at the confession. Nude but for braies, Estinien shook back his silver hair, and for a moment, Aymeric was dazzled. It was a riveting, breathtaking splendor, Estinien’s unkempt magnificence—far too uncanny for rote or convention. _Otherworldly_ , perhaps, could begin to describe it. Borel was long taken in. 

“I cannot condemn the attraction,” Aymeric began, thinking aloud. “Of him, or anyone either.” He took a steadying breath. “You are beautiful regardless.” He powered through the placid grimace he received. “Haurchefant’s liking was ever straightforward—for Samantha, and each wayward soul he opts to admire. How many innocent holiday sprigs have you personally flattened to evade the pursuit of his lips?”

“Halone forbid you remind me,” Estinien grumbled, stepping into his slacks. 

Aymeric grinned. “Are you so averse to the concept?”

“Shut it.” Estinien shrugged on an undershirt stolen from Aymeric’s drawers.

Borel’s smirk only widened. “But would you truly never permit it—one kiss?”

Estinien scowled at him, adorning his jerkin. “Have _you_ allowed our friend such _permission?”_

Aymeric laughed breathlessly, helpless. “I believe on one, or daresay both cheekbones,” he admitted. “Though not on the mouth, I profess it.”

“Well,” grunted the other. “When you deign to consent to his slobbering whims, I will begin to consider the equivalent.”

Borel let his eyes narrow, thin and mischievous. “Then let the debacle commence.”

☽ ☄ ☾

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to cut this chapter in half, which means another update looms! Thank you SO very much for continuing to perceive this suddenly all-consuming saga. You are glorious.
> 
> Also: remember when we were at 20k words?  
> We're up to 33k. Yep. So. ANYWAY,  
> PLEASE LOOK FORWARD TO IT,
> 
> WILL HAURCHEFANT PRESS HIS LIPS TO ESTINIEN? WILL AYMERIC EVER FEEL COMFORTABLE AGAIN? TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR PROBABLY MORE SEXUAL TENSION AND FULLY-FORMED TROPES

**Author's Note:**

> If you like these dummies you should totally read my other works!
> 
> Inspired, as tends to happen these days, by the [Book Club](https://discord.gg/qGQ8Grj) ♡


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